


Turning Over a New Claw

by AnonEhouse



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 05:43:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 32,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monsters are overrunning the world, due in part to over-hunting of the dragons who used to keep them in check. Ex-dragon slayer Clint Barton finds himself changing careers, and forging an alliance beginning with the black dragon, Ton'i.</p><p>Of course, this is dependent on Clint keeping Ton'i in coffee.</p><p>AND COMPLETED as a CHRISTMAS present for my readers. I hope you enjoy it. :^)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE: If you highlight gray boxes after a riddle, you'll see the answer. If you choose 'hide creator's style' while reading this fic, the answer will be in plain sight without highlighting.

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

It's too dark to go on. Even Clint's sharp eyes can't make out the path any longer, so he decides to spend the night where he is, on this bare rocky slope. It feels like basalt, and is still radiating sun-warmth which is a good thing as the mountain has been dragon cleared of all vegetation larger than a shrub. Not that he'd be stupid enough to set a fire. He's been dragon hunting since he was a boy; he knows how quickly bright things draw their attention. He sits with his back to a conveniently smooth rise of stone and checks his bow over by feel before unstringing it to let it rest for the night. He doesn't bother with any other preparations for sleep. His pack is light; a few bundles of venison jerky, an empty water pouch, an official dragon-hunter seal, now tattered and scorched around the edges. He doesn't really know why he bothered to save it from the innkeeper's fire. It's not as if that's an honorable profession any longer, now that the eco-magicians have declared dragons not merely endangered, but a vital link in the ecosystem.

But it's all he knows. The dragon hunter had taken him in, first just as someone to polish his armor, care for his horse, and be kicked around whenever drink got the best of the man-- which was most days. And then later, when he'd seen the gifts Clint had been born to, he'd laughed and swept Clint's hair back from the pointed tips of his ears before beating him stupid and accusing him of holding back. So Clint had worked hard with bow and knife, and... feelings...things he didn't understand. By the time the dragon hunter had managed to get himself killed by a small and stupid wyvern, Clint had learned that he was one of the light-elves. Only, as it turned out, when he found a tribe of them, no, he was half-human. They tried to accept him, but he always felt rough and uncouth, and an embarrassment that one of those graceful creatures had, under whatever circumstances, been intimate with a human. It had been easier to return to dragon-slaying. People had praised him, slapped him on the back, cheered his name when he'd bring in the head for the bounty. The heads had been getting smaller, and they'd been harder to find, but he hadn't thought anything about that, dragons were always shy creatures. He had noticed there were more _monsters_ , the ones who actively sought out people, but he wasn't a monster-slayer, so it hadn't been any of his business.

It wasn't his business until the criers went through the land and suddenly dragon-hunting was more than illegal, it was immoral, and everyone spit on him and blamed him for... pretty much everything. It wasn't fair, but hey, Clint was used to things not being fair. But the one thing he knew was still dragons, so maybe he could go out and find a young dragon and... well, tame it and keep it safe until it grew big enough to hunt and then he could hire it out to go after monsters. Young dragons were very stupid. Maybe he could set up a dragon-breeding farm.

So, here he is on a dragon-cleared mountain, hoping there's a hidden clutch of eggs, or a young lizard hiding under a bush somewhere. It's a small hope. He sighs.

The warm basalt beneath him sighs and shifts. Clint grabs his bow and has it strung, drawn and his best arrow aimed at the huge golden eyes of what must be the biggest dragon he's ever encountered, a dragon bigger than he thought _possible_. "I don't want to hurt you!" Clint shouts (understatement of the year, IF he could kill it, the locals would probably execute him). A dragon this old should be able to understand him. Whether or not it believes him, or even cares about his intentions, is another thing.

The dragon blinks, gold winking out in the dark and then back again. "You're kidding, right? You just go around pointing arrows at sleeping dragons for fun? That's pretty kinky." For such a huge creature, the dragon has a light voice with an odd, old-fashioned accent.

Clint hears the dragon shift, and sees the eye-shine rise high. Higher. Oh, man. "I thought you were a rock."

"Huh. Well, now you know better, so why don't you take your little toys and go away." The dragon shifts further away from Clint and there's rustling noises, probably vast wings settling along its back.

"I... I was actually looking for a dragon."

"You just weren't expecting to find one that could fight back?" There's a huffing sound, and then the mountainside is lit up by a stream of blue flame coming from the dragon's mouth. It's sitting back on its haunches, wings spread for balance. It speaks around the flame. "Really, not to put too fine a point on it, I've been working on this armor for a long time. You haven't got anything that can get through it. So I'm not actually concerned about you hurting me. Boring me, now that is an actual threat. So say something interesting, or leave."

"The country is overrun with monsters. Dragons are our only hope."

"Fine, go find some patriotic dragons."

"People are dying!"

"They have a tendency to do that, yes." The dragon yawns. "Sorry. I've just woke up after digging myself out of a cave. Got any coffee on you?"

"You drink coffee?"

"When I can get it." The dragon yawns again. "Omnivore here. I eat anything I want. But not people. I've sworn off them. Bad for the digestion."

"So, you don't kill people?"

"I didn't say that." Dragon teeth glitter in the reflections of blue flame. "I usually give treasure hunters and dragon slayers a choice of cremation or burial at sea." The vast wings sweep idly. "Which do you prefer, little dragon hunter?"

"Neither." Clint is beginning to get the idea that the dragon is...well _lonely_? After all, there are very few dragons that could speak, and probably even fewer people who would sit down to converse with something that could swallow them in one gulp. "How long were you in that cave? I just wondered if you knew that things have changed. People don't hunt dragons any more."

"Yeah, right." The dragon holds out one foreleg, showing five long claws, as flexible and dextrous as a human hand. "Pull the other one, it's got bells on. People aren't interested in gold or gems or tacking up a dragon's head over their hearth these days. Suuuure."

Clint doesn't understand the joke, but he does understand the intent. "Really. It's against the law."

"And that stops people?" The dragon huffs again. "I've lived long enough to know better."

"Yeah, well..." Clint lowers his bow and lets it slacken. "Sure, there's some people who always want what's rare." Thinking on it, Clint realizes that this dragon would be worth a fortune. He knows a wealthy man who would pay anything to have that head over his mantel even if he could only show it to a few people. And... while the dragon's armor looks impenetrable, the inside of his mouth is pink and soft. It would be so simple to send an explosive arrow in past the thin flame and then... Clint would be so rich he'd never have to work again. He unstrings his bow and puts the arrow back in his quiver. "You know, you're big and strong, but you have to sleep sometime. You could use someone to watch your back."

He'd never heard a dragon laugh before.

"What's your name, o mighty protector of weak and helpless dragons?"

"Clint Barton. Do you have a name?"

The dragon huffs another puff of smoky blue flame. "Several. You can call me Ton'i." Ton'i's eyes blink again. "Tell you what, if you can get me coffee, Clint, you can hang onto my tail for a while." Ton'i lowers his head until his eyes are level with Clint's. "Black. With a lot of sugar."

"Right." Clint waits until the dragon is settled on the ground again, before he leans back against that warm, not-stone and goes to sleep. It's relaxing knowing that there's only one thing nearby that might kill him. And at least he won't be eaten, which is sorta a comfort.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint wakes up at dawn, as he always does. The dragon is still asleep with the involuntary rustling of wings the only sign of life. Clint stands up and turns around to get his first look at _his_ dragon. The scales are black, with an iridescent sheen, like oil on water. As Ton'i breathes the scales flex to reveal glimpses of gold and red hide beneath the armor. He walks the length of the dragon, back under the shadow of the silk-black wings, along the coiled tension of the hind legs, around the twitching length of the disproportionately slender, dagger-tipped tail and finally stops to get an overall view.

Despite Ton'i's boasting, there are flaws in his armor, missing scales, even some rents in the tough hide beneath. His claws are blunted and cracked, some are even split far enough to reach the veins judging by the clots of green dragon-ichor coating them. The tail stops twitching.

"Coffee?"

Clint looks back to Ton'i's head, lying on the ground with his eyes slit barely open. "I could get coffee at the village I passed yesterday... but... I don't have any money."

Ton'i grunts and gets up to all fours for a catlike stretch, ending with an all-over shake that releases a few scales the size of Clint's hand. "What do you people use for money these days? Is gold still good?"

"Yeah, gold is good." Not that Clint's seen much of it, lately. "I'd show you a coin... but..."

Ton'i snorts a puff of flame. "If you were rich, you wouldn't be here, out in the backside of nowhere." He yawns and turns towards Clint, revealing a huge, shining white gem set in the hollow of his throat, just above his chest.

"What's that?" It's not like any dragon armor he's ever seen.

Ton'i tilts his head down on his long neck so his black whiskers sweep across the gem. "That's my pearl of omnipotence. And if you think how cool it would be to have for your very own, think again. The pearl and I are one." The dragon turns and starts walking. "The cave is nearby. I'll give you some gold, you'll go on a coffee run, right?"

"Right." Clint hurries to follow. Leisurely steps for something the size of Ton'i mean a jog trot for him. "Do you want anything else?"

"Mmm... sweet bread would be nice. The kind where they put icing on top. I like that."

"Uh huh." Clint catches up so he won't have to shout. "How do you know that?" 

Ton'i gives him a toothy grin. "I ate a bakery once. The sweet bread was the best part."

Clint stares at the dragon for a long moment. 

Ton'i laughs again. "You're so gullible. When I was young I lived near a black magician. He kept baiting traps for me. I kept stealing the bait. He had some idiotic idea about forging an alliance of 'unique individuals' to fight evil, blah blah blah."

"Why would a black magician want to fight evil?"

"Catch up, Lightfoot. Fury's black, but his magic's white... or probably gray. I didn't trust him or his familiar agent. Still don't." Ton'i pauses to bring up his left forefoot to tap against the pearl in his chest. "I bet he's still around, magicians don't die easily. Keep an eye out for him. He'd probably like to collect someone like you, and then I wouldn't get my coffee and cake." Clint doesn't ask any more questions. 

A few minutes later Ton'i pushes aside a large boulder, exposing the black opening of a rocky tunnel roughly the size of Ton'i, edges black and slick as if the stone had melted and run smooth. "Here you go, take as much as you want."

Clint peers into the tunnel, but can see nothing. "As much what?"

"Yeah, it doesn't look like much from here." Ton'i draws his wings in tight and enters the tunnel. He huffs out blue-white flame, and the pearl on his chest gives off a whiter light. "But down there is where I spent the last three hundred years."

"Three hundred?" Even a small dragon's lair tends to have semi-precious gems and nuggets of refined ore lying about, the by-products of their digestive system. What something the size of Ton'i could have produced... yeah, Clint is more than willing to go spelunking for a chance to see that. He follows Ton'i, and gets brave enough to climb up the dragon's tail, onto the back and finally settles between the furled wings. The cave roof is close overhead, he can smell the dampness.

"Yeah." Ton'i is moving faster, pulling his legs in and sliding down the slope on his belly. "YEEEOOOW!" the dragon shouts gleefully as he accelerates, creating a wind that threatens to pull Clint from his perch.

"YOU'RE CRAZY!" Clint shouts back, flattening himself down and clinging desperately to the base of the wings.

"MAYBE!" Ton'i replies. They thump to a landing and Ton'i gets to his feet. "That was fun. Not as much fun as flying, but pretty good." He spreads one wing, tilted toward the cavern floor. "Get down, Bowman."

Clint slides down the wing, and looks around. Ton'i's using his flame and the pearl is very bright, so they're in a lit-up sphere showing a bare cave littered with chunks of gold, silver and copper, along with rough lumps of dull gemstones, some so big he wouldn't be able to pick them up. He notices them only in passing, though, because the central object is a pile of huge bones, gnaw marks visible on many surfaces. The skull stares blindly back at Clint.

"That's Ob'i," Ton'i says as he goes over to flip the skull over. "He thought his armor was better than mine. I thought he was my friend. We were both wrong." Ton'i shrugs his wings. "But, looking on the bright side, he was delicious."


	3. Chapter 3

There are some pieces of Obi's wings remaining, dried leathery scraps large enough that Clint can tie them into sacks, using spare bowstrings. He fills the sacks with refined ore. The gems are more valuable, but there'd be too many questions asked about the origin of uncut stones. People probably wouldn't even believe the larger ones were real, so he takes only a few small ones in his nearly empty money pouch. Ton'i lowers his head to let Clint drape the sacks over his neck and then climb back on to sit between the wings again. "I'm only going along with this beast of burden nonsense until you can buy a horse, Pixiepants."

"My name is Clint, Lizardlips!"

Ton'i laughs. "Point to the elf."

***

Climbing up from the cave is slow, with the dragon digging into the rock to drag them up the steep incline. Clint now understands how Ton'i's claws were damaged and why it took so long for him to escape the cave. Ton'i had refused to say how he'd been trapped inside the mountain, but the seared bones of dwarves clad in Afghar metal give him a clue. The Afgharians' magic is limited to their mountains, but within them, they are all-powerful.

When they reach the surface Ton'i spreads his wings, huffs and refurls them. "Coffee. Remember you promised me coffee." He starts walking down the mountain.

"Why don't we fly?"

"It's such a pretty day I thought I'd walk."

Clint looks at the dull gray clouds and shrugs. "Ok, don't tell me."

Ton'i keeps half-spreading his wings, and then pulling them tight. After a while Clint figures it out. As big as that cave was, there wasn't room for a dragon Ton'i's size to fly, so his wing muscles are atrophied. Ton'i keeps trying to spread them until the muscles go into trembling spasms."Cramps are nasty," Clint says before leaning over to massage the base of the left wing.

Ton'i tilts his head back to look at Clint. He has a suspicious look in his eye, but doesn't say anything until they reach the crossroad at the foot of the mountain, past the area Ton'i's stripped bare. "Which way?" Ton'i swings his head around to look between the pine-bordered roads, a mixture of broken stone and beaten hard clay.

"Take the right fork to the village of Nyawk. Oh, hey, how hot is your fire? I mean, could you melt gold?"

"Sure. Why?"

"Well, nuggets make people think of mines. If they get curious enough they'll find your cave."

Ton'i growls. "I don't like people taking my stuff."

Clint has almost forgot how dangerous Ton'i is, but the fury in the dragon's voice reminds him. "Yeah, so I was thinking, make the gold into coins- it won't matter if they're sloppy, everybody shaves gold coins."

"I hate sloppy work," Ton'i grumbles. 

"But you like coffee."

"On the other hand, sometimes quick is good."

***

Clint presses his few pennies into the clay bank of a stream to make molds. Ton'i chews gold and spits the molten metal into the forms before lowering his smoking muzzle into the stream. The water boils. Fish and crayfish float up, steam-boiled. Clint picks up a branch to rake one of the larger fish close enough to grab, but when he leans over the water he sees a woman's face, distorted by pain, her hands reaching up to him in appeal.

He's horrified and reaches down into the still-hot water, but gets knocked back by Ton'i's neck swinging wide. He lands on his back, rolls to his feet and grabs a dagger, prepared to fight for the woman's life. 

Ton'i huffs at him. "Really? You like fish that much?" The dragon grabs the struggling woman out of the stream and dumps her on the bank. She's got a tail, long and silvery, with jagged-edged dark green fins.

"Well..." Clint looks at the stream-maid. "Not as such, but..." 

The stream-maid's mouth opens, and it's not a mouth, it's half the body, opening into shark teeth in three rows as it flops and the last illusion of humanity vanishes as it lunges for him, snapping viciously.

"HELL, NO!" Clint fires half a dozen arrows into the creature before it lies still.

"Since you don't want it..." Ton'i delicately plucks the arrows free before gulping down the water monster. He smacks his lips. "Not bad, could use salt." He tilts his head. "I still want coffee."

***

"Oh," Clint says as they approach a well-built wide stone bridge set across the water, "I forgot, we'll have to go down further to the ford." Other streams have joined the one they were following, and it's nearly a small river.

"Why? The bridge appears sound." 

"The bridge is fine. The troll isn't."

Ton'i huffs and looks along both banks of the watercourse. "You're afraid of a troll? They just sit under their bridges and whine when people cross."

"This one does more than whine. He _grows_ huge, I mean, really huge, and smashes things. People. Towns. Let's just go around."

"Oh, no, now you have got me curious." Ton'i lowers his head until he's peering under the bridge at a dim greenish shadow hunched under the foundation. "Hey, big guy, I like what you've done with the decor... nice... moss on the rocks. You know. You've got style."

"Leave me alone," the troll's voice is soft and sad and generally sounds like he's been feeling sorry for himself for ages.

"Aw, don't be like that." Ton'i whips his tail around and jabs the troll in the ribs. "C'mon out!"

"NO!" The troll rubs his ribs and cringes further back. "Don't want to. Nobody likes me."

Clint is clinging to Ton'i's neck and whispering curses under his breath.

Ton'i's tail darts under and jabs the troll again. "I like you. Hey, the elf is going to get me coffee and sweet bread from the village. You want anything?"

"Tea?" the troll sounds hopeful.

"Sure, tea, dishwater, whatever. C'mon...." Ton'i's tail waggles in front of the troll. "I'm Ton'i, the guy with the pointy ears is Clint, and we're off to eat monsters and save the world. Maybe, I'm not sure about that, still haven't had my coffee yet."

"Can I just squash the monsters? I'm a vegetarian," the troll says, creeping out gradually from under the bridge and blinking up at them. He's about Clint's size, but greenish skinned and blocky, with curly grizzled fur running all over his body, except for his hands, face and feet. He's got huge, soft-looking brown eyes.

"Fine, more for me. So, we're good, we can cross your bridge?"

"Yeah, all right." The troll grins suddenly. "My name is Burrruch." He holds out his hand. Ton'i shakes hands with him and grins toothily. Clint sighs.


	4. Chapter 4

Clint kicks Ton'i with his heel to get his attention. The dragon and bridge troll haven't shut up for the last mile. Apparently they have a lot in common. Clint thinks that being stuck in a cave/under a bridge drove them each crazy. They've been discussing amicable and irrational numbers to the point he tuned them out. The mention of sexy primes briefly made his ears prick up, but no, _more_ numbers. "Hey, guys," Clint says when the kicking gets Ton'i to swivel his head around to glare at Clint. "The village is just beyond this stand of pine. Stay here and wait for me, ok?"

Ton'i grunts something vaguely affirmative sounding and extends one wing for Clint to slide down after he pockets a few gold coins. "Yeah, yeah. We'll be here."

Burrruch starts picking up pine cones and shaking out the pine nuts to crunch between his squarish teeth. "Did you ever notice the Fibonacci spiral in pine cones, Ton'i?"

"Of course I did, there are two spirals of five and eight arms respectively in the small ones, and eight and thirteen in the larger ones."

Clint leaves as Ton'i is shaking a tree to bring down more pinecones.

***

Nyawk is a fairly large village, large enough to have a whole row of shops with a wide selection of merchandise. It's also large enough that the innkeeper doesn't see anything unusual about a scruffy archer asking to exchange worn-out 'foreign' coinage for local money. She tests the purity of the gold and weighs it, but doesn't cheat him outrageously on the exchange, so he's feeling rather pleased with himself as he leaves the inn with a nicely plump bag of silver and copper genuine coin of the realm mixed with the remaining gold. 

He decides that he should buy a horse first. If nothing else, a pot large enough to brew a dragon-size serving of coffee will be awkward to carry. He sees a small smithy which is in active use, judging by the sparks and rhythmic pounding accompanied by cheerful, bass-toned chanting. Smiths always know the local horse trade- they do all the shoeing and often double as horse-doctors. Even if no one's left a horse with him to sell, he'll know where Clint can find one.

"Hello, the smith!" Clint calls when the massive man pauses to inspect a chain-mail shirt he's repairing. The man looks up at him and grins in a friendly fashion. His long blond hair is tied back into a rough knot and his beard seems to bristle with enthusiasm.

He tells Clint, "The smith has gone to visit kin. He gave me permission to use his forge in his absence."

A young woman with impressively muscled arms is leaning against the forge bellows, with a small boy standing beside her, clutching at the heavy, scorched, leather apron she's wearing over her dress. She straightens. "My father will not return this day, sir, but if you wish to purchase something, I can help you." From the way she's looking at him, Clint thinks she might be willing to help him in other ways, and he's tempted, but he's not sure how patiently Ton'i will be waiting. Better not risk it. He smiles back at her politely. 

"Thank you. I need a pot or a kettle- let me see the largest you have, please."

The girl hesitates, glancing at his worn clothing. 

Clint opens his purse and shows her a handful of coin. "I'm also looking for a horse. Big, and calm, maybe an old warhorse." Most horses are terrified of dragons, which is only sensible, but a tired old warhorse could be convinced that Ton'i won't eat him. Eventually. Clint figures he'll probably have to blindfold the horse and lead it for a few days until it gets used to the idea.

"I'll send the boy to ask about the horse, sir. Let me bring you some pots to look at." The boy scampers out into the street, while the girl goes to the back of the smithy, likely very cheerful at the thought of a good sale.

The blond man picks up his hammer from the anvil, a huge thing that moves as if weightless in his hands. "My name is Thor." His brows draw down. "How did you come by dragon-forged gold?" There's definitely a threat in that rumbling voice. 

Clint backs up and assesses his chances of peacefully handling this situation. "What? Those coins? I found them."

Thor slams his hammer down on the anvil, creating a truly impressive cascade of sparks. "Forged today by a dragon of full strength, with the clay of their molding still upon them. Do not lie again to me."

"What's it to you, where I got it? The gold is good." Elves have a reputation for fairy-gold, supposed to melt away by moonlight. It's always a friend of a friend who tells the story; Clint certainly doesn't know how to do it, and wouldn't if he could. There are probably quicker ways to get a crowd howling for your blood than using magic to cheat, but he'd have to think a while to come up with one.

"I have..." Thor sighs and seems to deflate, letting his shoulders hang loose, the hammer dangling like a child's toy. "I have been sent on a quest to redeem my honor in battle against the pestilential creatures invading the land in the absence of the great dragons of old. If one yet lives, I beg you to tell me. I swear, I mean neither you, nor the great wyrm, any harm. Indeed, I would lend all that I have to your aid, do you in truth ally with such a one."

Clint blinks. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"Nay, my kingdom...my country... lies far to the north."

"Um..." Clint notices the young woman is dragging a huge kettle towards them. If Thor is honest, his muscle will come in handy. If he's lying, then between him, Ton'i and Burrruch, they could handle him away from the village. "Yeah, ok, but keep it quiet. And what do you have to offer, anyway?"

"My hammer, myself, and my warhorse, Helmfall. He is without peer, and fearless."

"Will he carry supplies?"

Thor frowns. "I will explain the necessity to him." Thor puts two fingers in his mouth and lets loose a piercing whistle. 

Clint whirls at the sound of hooves and backs up as the biggest horse he's ever seen rears up before him. "Whoa." Helmfall is bright copper colored, his hooves are the size of dinner plates, and his eyes look altogether too intelligent. "Yeah. You talk to him."


	5. Chapter 5

With Thor and Helmfall to help carry, Clint has stocked up on all sorts of things he hopes will appeal to a dragon with a sweet tooth. He stops just before they reach the pines. "I'd better go on ahead." He takes a bag of fried sweet bread and another of coffee beans from Helmfall's saddle. "You know, probably not a good idea to surprise a dragon."

Thor nods and pats Helmfall on the neck. "I would not wish to frighten him."

"Frighten... yeah." Clint shakes his head and walks into the pines. He can hear Ton'i and Burrruch talking, but can't make out the words. "Hey, guys," he calls, and then stops. Burrruch is standing on Ton'i's back, holding a length of vine, dripping white sap. Ton'i has white, drippy lines curving around his body. "What?"

Ton'i tilts his head. Burrruch crouches down to hide behind Ton'i's wing. The dragon answers for them. "We're trying to decide whether my scales are simply a tessellation adjusted to fit, or a variant of Fibonacci spiraling. Personally, I'm going with a combination."

"But we won't know for sure until I finish collating the data," Burrruch says solemnly, peeking out from under the wing.

"Yeah, ok," Clint doesn't really care. "I got your sweet bread and coffee."

"Great." Ton'i sits down on his haunches and reaches for the bag of sweet bread. Burrruch slides down and lands on the ground, blinking, before he giggles and sits up. "Tea?" Burrruch asks. Ton'i opens the bag and offers him a sweet bread. Burrruch takes a fruit-filled one and starts munching.

"I got tea, too. Um. You know..." Clint rakes a hand through his hair, suddenly not quite sure about this. Events are moving quicker than he likes, and he's not sure he's doing the right thing. But... you know... maybe. "I needed help to carry it all."

"So, you bought a horse," Ton'i says around a mouthful of assorted sweet bread. One of the circular fried breads is caught on a fang, like a ring-toss game. Ton'i's long tongue lifts it up and tosses it down his throat. 

"Yeah, well, I _got_ a horse, and um, the horse's owner." 

Burrruch and Ton'i stop eating and stare at him.

"Thor's a good guy. He does blacksmithing... among other things. I bet he could trim your nails for you." 

Ton'i huffs a short jet of flame. Burrruch crawls under Ton'i's wing which curves protectively around him. "Blacksmith, eh? Let's see him."

"Yo, Thor," Clint yells, "Come and meet the big guy. And his shy buddy."

Thor strides into the clearing which suddenly seems way too small to Clint. Really, a dragon, a huge horse and Thor... you really need a lot of leg-room to invite them all to the same party. Thor goes down on one knee, bowing his head in an easy graceful way that says 'I'm not inferior to you, but I'm very polite'. Clint figures he must have been somebody, somewhere, to learn that trick. "I am Thor. I wish to aid you in your quest, great one."

Ton'i tilts his head and narrows his eyes. "Quest? What did you tell him, Elflocks? I'm not looking for trouble, fame or fortune. Got enough of all that a long time ago."

"No, hey," Clint says, "It's really his quest. One of those 'go forth and slay monsters and then you can come home and get married, run the farm' that sort of thing, I think."

"That is... close to my meaning," Thor says, lifting his head, but still down on one knee, with his great hammer at his side. Clint gets the hammer, it's Thor's special thing, like Clint's bow. It's kinda useful, and carrying it around sure does buff up his biceps. "I would fight at your side against the monstrous ones."

Ton'i's ears flip back and forth and then go steady. "Sure, fine. Just remember, I don't need you. You can tag along and have fun beating up any monsters that turn up. There's a lot of them about, apparently, so we won't run short. Speaking of things running short, where's my coffee?"

Thor gets up and begins unloading the supplies tied onto Helmfall's harness. He hands the large kettle to Clint. "There is a stream in that direction." He points down a slight slope. "I shall grind the beans and gather wood for the fire."

"No, no, no, no, no, NO!" squeaks a thin voice coming from ...somewhere nearby? Everyone looks around, including Thor's horse, but it's Clint who spies the tiny manikin jumping up and down on top of a stump. He points at it. "Ok, who invited the brownie?"

Ton'i lowers his head to the ground and blinks at the brownie, amused. "What's your objection, shortstuff? These your trees?"

The brownie nods his head. Another brownie hops up onto the stump next to him and shakes his head. "No, no, sir! We hate trees, don't we, Dummy? Cut down all the trees!"

A third brownie clambers up to join the first two. "Butterfingers, no, you're saying it all wrong. We want to serve you! What good's a brownie without someone to help?" As if that was a signal, all three brownies jump down and climb onto Toni's head and start combing out his beard. "Yes, yes, yes, we need you. We love you!"

Ton'i rolls his eyes trying to watch the little guys, who keep getting in each other's way, and complaining that 'it's my turn, You, no, no, MINE'. Finally he sighs, blowing them all off to roll on the ground. "FINE, fine, you can come along, too. I don't care WHO makes the coffee. Just do it."

The brownies scatter and begin gathering wood for the fire. They're surprisingly strong for their size. But very stupid. Ton'i looks at Burrruch. "Maybe I could give them away. A boarding school might take them."


	6. Chapter 6

After gulping down several kettles of coffee and the last of the sweet bread while Thor used heavy shears and then a file to trim his ragged claws, Ton'i grumpily agrees to let most of the supplies be transferred to him, draped over his long back on ropes hung to either side, freeing Helmfall to let Clint and Thor ride the horse. The brownies polish his scales, which Ton'i pretends is an annoyance, but Clint is pretty sure he's eating up the attention. Clint is a bit surprised how much _he's_ enjoying not being on his own. Being accepted as the least weird person around is a new thing for him.

When Ton'i gets up after lying down to make the loading easier, he stretches and more scales fall off. "No, no, bad!" Butterfingers cries, and he starts trying to stick a scale, bigger than he is, back on Ton'i's belly. The other two brownies join in, and then Burrruch helpfully offers sap from a pine branch he's been chewing on, as glue. It really doesn't work. Ton'i shakes the brownies off, shedding more scales in the process. "You guys are useless!" Ton'i snaps. The brownies look pitiful. Ton'i rolls his eyes. "Go gather pine nuts for Burrruch," he tells them, and they perk up at the thought of a new task.

"Are you supposed to shed that much?" Clint asks. He doesn't remember any of the dragons he's killed as having patchy skins, and since he'd been the one to prepare all the kills for display he'd gone over every inch of them.

"I probably have a diet deficiency," Ton'i admits. "I hadn't planned on a few hundred years without greens or sunshine." He stretches his neck up, rips the top off a pine tree and chews it up. "Yuck, chlorophyll." He flaps his wings a few times. "Where are we going? Anyone got a road map, destination in mind, noble quest, favorite boozer? Anything?" 

Clint looks at Thor, who shrugs. Helmfall snorts and starts walking, almost knocking Clint off, so he has to grab the back of Thor's cape to hang on.

"Fine, great, we'll follow the one with the least brains." Ton'i looks at the brownies, who are squabbling over a large pine cone. "Fourth least brains." He tilts a wing down to let Burrruch climb aboard so they can keep talking about numbers while they walk.

It's a nice day, cool and dry, and if they had any idea where they were going, they would have made good progress by the time they called it a day and settled on a campsite close to a stream. Clint and Thor have had a long conversation without actually saying much, but he's good at listening to what's not being said so he knows that Thor's got some kind of family problems. 

"I never had any family," Clint says as he climbs down from the horse.

"Family," Ton'i huffs, sending a small flame to start their campfire. "Who needs it? My father tried to eat me when I hatched."

"That's a joke," Clint says, "right?"

Ton'i gives him a long, serious look. And then grins. "Honestly, you are _so_ easy. Nah, H'ward was an ice dragon so we didn't get along, but eh, he wasn't that bad." Ton'i eats another bushel or so of fried sweet bread and curls up to sleep, with Burrruch under one wing and the brownies clustered in the curve of his neck. Thor unharnesses Helmfall and sets the horse on guard duty. Clint thinks Thor is a few arrows short of a full quiver, but hey, he's really not worried about someone sneaking up on a dragon in the dark. Ton'i is warm enough that once he and Thor have cooked their own dinner, they put the fire out and go to sleep leaning against his flanks.

***

Clint comes awake so fast that he's up and has a knife in his hand before he knows what's happened. Ton'i's rearing above the rest of them, flames shooting out to set trees on fire across the stream. Helmfall is motionless, oddly posed, with his head flung high, and mane standing stiffly like frozen streamers. A man is standing next to Helmfall. It's difficult to make out, but there seems to be something hunched on his left shoulder. "FURY!" Ton'i roars through the flames. Everything is flickering with doubled shadows, blue-white flame competing with the red-orange of the blazing trees. "I told you to leave me the hell alone!"

"It isn't all about you!" The man says, loud and clear, commanding but not shouting. Clint files the voice control away as a good trick, while still keeping his knife aimed at the mid-point of the body mass. Thor is standing close to Clint, gripping his hammer as if he's going to throw it, poor battle tactics, Clint notes, but hey, to each his own. "I came because you've finally got off your fat ass and started assembling the Avenger alliance."

Ton'i huffs more flame. "I don't need anyone! I let them tag along, that's all."

"Yeah, sure." Fury strides closer, his long dark cloak swaying around his legs. When he gets close, Clint sees that he is indeed black, and has apparently a fondness for the color, since his cloak, boots, trousers, and the patch over his left eye are all black, too. The only spot of color is the large rainbow colored chameleon clinging effortlessly to his left shoulder, using each eye to scan in a different direction. "You're so tough, you don't need anyone's help. Coulson," he says, as if giving an order. The chameleon's tongue darts out, sticking to one of Ton'i's fallen scales, and pulling it back to Fury's waiting hand. Fury doesn't look at the scale as he holds it up. "Yeah, you're doing just great. You sure you don't need a little bit of help, there?"

"GO AWAY!" shouts a voice much louder and deeper than Ton'i's.

 _What the..._ Clint thinks as he and Thor are pushed apart by a big, Really big, No, I'm not KIDDING, AMAZINGLY HUGE, green troll which jumps past them shouting, and swings a fist the size of a prize-winning melon at Fury, who parts like smoke and vanishes, chameleon and all. The scale falls to the ground. Helmfall whirls, neighing and pawing furiously. The troll yells and keeps jumping.

Ton'i shouts, "Burrrruch!" and runs after the troll, wings flapping but not getting him off the ground. The burnt trees fall into the stream. The brownies start wailing and running around in circles. Thor goes after his horse, shouting and trying to calm it enough for him to jump onto its back.

Clint slides his knife back into its sheath and looks around as darkness slips back over the campsite. "Well, _that_ was fun."


	7. Chapter 7

At least the brownies are good about gathering firewood. Clint doesn't know if the others will return, but he's not a night creature and it would be stupid to stumble around in the monster-filled wilderness in the dark. He crosses the stream to collect a burning branch and to make sure the rest of the wildfire is out, then he goes back to keep the brownies company. The little guys are really pathetic. And annoying.

The sky is lightening by the time Clint hears the slow thud of heavy hooves. "Hey," he calls, standing up to stretch the kinks out of his back. "Thor, yo, here."

"Well met," Thor says after Helmfall leaps the stream and stops by the campfire. "A fair day to you, friend." Thor slides off the horse, picks up Helmfall's harness from the ground where it had been left the night before and begins to saddle Helmfall. Neither of them seems fazed by traveling through the sleepless night.

"Uh huh." Clint yawns. "Be better if Ton'i didn't have all the supplies." He pulls out a length of jerky from his pack and breaks it in half, offering the larger chunk to Thor.

"I am ashamed to admit, I lost the wyrm," Thor says around a mouthful of jerky. He has strong jaws. That stuff's like leather.

"No problem. I can track anything." Clint starts walking, Thor leading his horse beside him. The brownies whine, but somehow manage to keep up. He doesn't watch them to find out how they do it; everyone knows brownies just appear where ever they want to be.

***

It really isn't hard to follow Ton'i. What he couldn't smash through, he burned down. "He's stirred up the whole forest," Clint grumbles after the third attack of willowasps (they're nuisances, small, bitey and fast, but generally they stay near puddles and don't bother anyone with the sense to stay clear) and the second of killer rabbits (also fast, but dog-sized, usually found in hillocky burrowed regions). Helmfall's platter-sized hooves take care of the rabbits that Clint doesn't shoot- they're not good eating, anyway.

The brownies reappear, clinging to Helmfall's mane. "Ton'i! Ton'i! Ton'i!" they squeak and fuss and wave their skinny arms around frantically. "TROUBLE! HELP! HELP!"

"All right, all right. Stop squeaking, will ya?" Clint springs up behind Thor and gets a good grip on Thor's belt. "Tracks are fresh, we're not far behind."

"Ho, Helmfall, make haste!" Thor yells, and the horse rears once and then goes into overdrive. Clint crouches behind Thor, letting the big man serve as windbreak. The brownies are hanging on by their hands, streaming from the horse's mane like festival day decorations. Grant them that much, the little cusses have strong hands. Their disappearance a few minutes later is the only warning Clint has before Helmfall plants his front hooves in the ground, coming to a halt so suddenly that Clint is briefly airborne before falling off.

"Sanddevils!" Thor shouts with glee, leaping from the horse and striding toward the deceptively smooth ground filling a hollow between two hilly slopes. Ton'i is up past his belly in the middle of the sand, with Burrruch reverted to his smaller self, sitting astride his neck right behind his head. Ton'i is in constant motion, shooting blasts of blue fire and smacking sanddevils with his wings and tail, but it looks as if he's tiring, the flames are short and last only a few seconds. Sanddevils keep breaking the surface, fins and clawed tentacles darting out to grab at their prey.

"I hate sanddevils," Clint grumbles as he strings his bow and follows Thor. 

"They are vile vermin, indeed," Thor sings merrily. He throws his hammer, smashing an exceptionally bold sanddevil in the head. The hammer turns and flies back to Thor's hand. 

"Neat trick," Clint approves as he takes up a stance outside of tentacle stretch and starts firing at any bit of beige skin that shows above the sand.

"About... time," Ton'i huffs, grabbing a distracted sanddevil between his teeth and crunching once before swallowing it whole. "They taste like CRAP."

"We'll have coffee later!" Clint replies as he picks off several more sanddevils. 

"If I can find it!" Ton'i growls and blasts more fire. The ropes that had held their supplies are hanging off of him in chewed bits. Sanddevils are indiscriminate eaters. 

The brownies pick up pebbles and throw them at the sanddevils. Helmfall watches the fight for a few minutes, then wanders off to graze. Eventually the sand lies still, clotted with sanddevil ichor and chunks of sanddevil meat. Ton'i sighs and lays his neck down on the sand. At full stretch he can't quite reach the edge of the pit. "This is your stop, Burrruch. End of the line."

The troll jumps to the solid ground. He looks embarrassed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to cause all that trouble."

"Eh," Ton'i says, "not your fault. Fury always pisses me off, too. And I really loved the grown-up you. Impressive, really." Ton'i looks around the pit. "Now, how about getting me out of here?"

"Can you not fly?" Thor asks.

Ton'i rolls his eyes at him. "Sure, I just stayed here because I love playing in the sandbox." He pushes at the sand with his nose. The sand flows right back. "I'm standing on something, or I'd have gone under hours ago."

Clint looks at the sand. "Maybe we could get a rope around your neck and drag you out." He's not terribly optimistic. Helmfall is strong, but Ton'i is flippin' HUGE.

"Not a good plan," Ton'i says. He blows more fire at the sand, fusing a patch to lumpy yellow glass. "If I wasn't about out of gas, I could handle it myself."

Thor's face brightens. "Is it true that fire dragons can withstand lightning?"

"Sure. It tickles. Feels good, actually." Ton'i looks up at the cloudless blue sky. "Not much chance of it, though."

"We need not wait upon fortune's favor."

Ok, Clint is sure this guy is from another planet or something. Nobody talks like that.

Thor starts swinging his hammer in circles over his head. Faster, and faster, until it's a gray blur, no. Silver. Shining and WHOA, Clint flattens himself to the ground as the hair rises up on the back of his neck and he can _smell_ the lightning in the air. Thor is laughing like a maniac, black clouds have appeared out of NOWHERE. The brownies are screaming and Burrruch is whimpering and then lightning splits the sky and hits Ton'i on his upraised nose, races along his body and flashes out in a starfish pattern along the sand.

"YEEEEEOOOW! YES! Do THAT AGAIN!" Ton'i's eyes and pearl are glowing white-hot and sparks are shooting from his grinning mouth. 

Thor laughs and the lightning continues to strike until the dragon is surrounded by lumpy yellow glass and curls of smoke are coming from his ears. Thor lets the hammer slow until it comes to rest at his feet. "All is well, great one?" he asks.

"Never better." Ton'i hiccups. "Woah, what a trip." He shifts and the glass breaks around him. He grabs chunks with his teeth and starts heaving them out of the pit. "Let's see if any of the supplies are still good." He pauses to eat a few more sanddevils. "They're starting to grow on me. A bit gritty, but roughage is good." He hiccups again and tilts his head to look at Clint upside down. "You look weird."

Clint doesn't comment on the fact that Ton'i is high as a...well, flying dragon? He's too busy flinging piled up pieces of glass out of the way and really hoping there's at least one sack of coffee beans intact, and that enough coffee will sober Ton'i up. Thor wades into the pit and works his way down to the rather cross-eyed dragon.

"What is this?" Thor says when he gets a space cleared beneath Ton'i's forelegs. "The stone you are standing upon is shaped."

"Huh. A statue?" Ton'i scratches at the stone a bit with his claws. "And it's warm. And... oh, hey, it's ALIVE!" Ton'i yelps and flaps, managing to rise into the air just enough to clear the pit, with Thor hanging onto his leg. Ton'i crashes onto his side and rolls onto his back, head hanging down into the pit to look at the creature emerging from it. "Hi!" he says, giggling, and flaps his wings against the ground. "My name is Ton'i, wazzors?"

The living statue climbs out of the pit. It has the face of a man, the body of a lion and huge eagle wings, all carved from dark tan marble, streaked and speckled with veins of chocolate brown. It looks at Ton'i. "You're ridiculous," it growls in a deep voice.

"No, no, I'm Ton'i! I told you." Ton'i hiccups again. "Did'ja find any coffee down there?" he asks.

The sphinx sighs. "Rhododendron. That's my name." Everyone stares at the sphinx. "What?" the sphinx asks. "So, my ma liked flowers, all right?"

Ton'i blinks. "Rhodooddoddon... Rhodey. Hey, Rhodey, baby, are you sure there isn't any coffee?"

The sphinx rolls his eyes. "I'll look." He turns back to the pit. "Thanks for getting me out of there." He stretches. "Some bad stuff is going down. You guys wanna help me fight it?"

Clint looks at Thor who is all eagerness, and Ton'i who is grinning, totally plastered. Burrruch and the brownies are hiding under Ton'i's wings. He answers for all of them. "Sure. Welcome to the Avengers."


	8. Chapter 8

They find the bags of supplies intact, which surprises Clint until he remembers they are made of dragon wing leather, which has to be one of the toughest materials around. The brownies happily set about finding kindling and grinding beans while Thor rides off on Helmfall with the kettle, looking for water. The sphinx borrows one of Thor's horseshoeing tools and files his stone nails sharp while muttering under his breath about portents and riddles and self-respect (with an occasional dark glance in Ton'i's direction). Ton'i and Burrruch are arguing over whether most of the glass has fractured at 90 degree angles, classifying it as an inelastic material, or at 120 degrees, making it an elastic material. Burrruch doesn't even have the excuse of being lightning-drunk.

Clint decides that at the next village he sees, he's buying the strongest winter-wine they have. Obviously, being sober in this group is a liability to his sanity.

***

One kettle of coffee is enough to get Ton'i on his feet, but he's grouchy. "Let's find a waterway and follow it," Clint suggests. "That way, his majesty can have coffee whenever he wants." _Without us playing bucket brigade_ , he thinks, but doesn't say. Ton'i may be a good natured dragon, but he sure can talk, given the slightest reason to argue. Burrruch has run out of things to say, after a wistful remark about missing his old bridge, where nothing exciting ever happened and Clint is enjoying the relative quiet.

"You just want us to find you another girlfriend," Ton'i says with a smirk. Clint has never seen a dragon with such a wide range of expression on its leathery face, but to be fair, most of the time he was filling them full of arrows, so smirking was an unlikely response.

"Girlfriend?" Thor asks. He's striding along beside his horse, hammer over his shoulder, as if he was having a holy day stroll in the park. After he had bopped a giant carnivorous rock toad on the head while singing 'Little bunny Fu-Fu', Clint decided that this _is_ a stroll in the park for him. 

"Not my girlfriend," Clint is quick to correct. "A water demon."

"Fear not, friend Clint, I have heard of an infallible method of defeating such!" Thor grins and goes on to tell a lengthy and most improbable tale of a worthy knight who encounters a water monster while bathing. "And so he stood, proudly exposed to the beast's sight, and it fell back withered, undone to death!"

Clint coughs. "I think maybe that parable lost something in the translation. You're saying he _mooned_ it to death?"

"Verily." Thor nods. "The water creatures have no legs, and jealousy inflames them beyond bearing."

"You know..." Clint pauses, seeing so many ways this conversation can go wrong. "I'm... just going to let that ride."

"I've heard the whole story. It's better not to ask questions. You're not too stupid for a squishy person," Rhodey says. He grins at Clint around the mouthful of rock toad leg he's eating.

***

When they reach the deep, fast-running stream Ton'i takes one look at the dark green water and declares he's going to have a bath. "I've got sand under my scales, which shouldn't even be _possible._ "

"There should be a bridge here," Burrruch says mournfully. "I'm going to go build one." He swells up huge and leaps off, going after who knows what. No one feels like getting in his way.

Clint considers objecting to Ton'i's bath on the grounds that they're going to be drinking from that water, but the dragon has been... draggin', and he imagines an all-over itch on a body that size must be pretty miserable. "We'll go upstream to set up camp."

"And make more coffee." Ton'i stretches his neck, shudders all over and hacks up a fist-sized black rock before sliding into the water, closing his eyes and submerging until only his nose is showing.

Rhodey sniffs at the rock. "Carbonado. That's disgusting." 

"Well, sure, it's just been hocked up by a dragon," Clint says. 

"Black diamond. But wrong." Rhodey scrapes a hole in the ground and covers up the stone.

Diamond sounds valuable, but something about the greasy glitter of the stone convinces Clint that he doesn't want it. Rhodey's made of stone, he should know what he's talking about. Clint shrugs, he's got more money on him now than he ever has had in his life, he's not going to worry about it. Thor and the brownies are already heading upstream, their thin piping voices contrasting with his booming one and he hurries to catch up, unwilling to leave the choice of a campsite to them. The brownies have no sense at all, and Thor's idea of setting up a secure camp consists of making sure he has room to swing his hammer. Rhodey follows, grumbling in his gravely voice about 'bad rocks' and something mystical that Clint doesn't really listen to. Mostly magic is a pain in the ass, and he doesn't want to know any more about it than he can help. He sure doesn't want to wind up acting like one of those airy-fairy elves who think sweat is a bad word and you can get whatever you want by waving your hands just the right way.

***

Thor unharnesses his horse while Clint refills the kettle and the brownies gather wood and mushrooms and make a large fuss over grinding the coffee beans. Rhodey settles on his haunches, nibbling on river rocks and gazing at the hills in the distance. 

"What are you looking at, Rhodey?" Clint asks.

Rhodey's tail twitches. "A direction. My heart is a lodestone, it tells me where I should go."

"Did it tell you to walk into the sanddevil's nest? Because, you know, if it did, I wouldn't listen to it any more." Clint sets a pan over a smaller fire to heat. There should certainly be fish in this stream.

"It did." Rhodey contemplates a boulder before taking a bite from it. "Do you think we have met by chance?" 

Clint pauses, frypan in hand. "Look, I opted out of the legendary elf-stuff."

"But did it opt out of you?" 

There is an amazingly witty reply on the tip of Clint's tongue, but no one gets to hear it because there is a tremendous commotion downstream, Ton'i is shrieking, so high-pitched it's like a whistle that makes Clint's ears ring. He drops the pan in the fire, grabs his bow, and in an act of _incredible_ stupidity because whatever can make a dragon sound like a terrified child is not something he has any business going up against, runs downstream. He passes Rhodey almost immediately, and Thor on Helmfall only seconds later. He shouldn't be able to run so fast, but to hell with that, that's _his_ dragon. He arrives at the place they left Ton'i. The bank is torn up, and the water is full of churned mud, splashing in gouts as a struggle goes on beneath the surface. He catches glimpses of black, and flashes of something red even as he braces himself, and puts an arrow to the bow that's appeared in his hands without thought. "Come on, come on, give me a clear shot."

The water erupts like a fountain, and Ton'i rises, with something sinuous and scarlet wrapped around his throat. Clint sees green eyes and shining white fangs sunk into Ton'i's neck, but before he can loose the arrow, the dragon takes off in true flight, no pathetic flappings, no hesitation, just a blur and _Snap_ like a million bowstrings, and Ton'i is up in the sky, a black cross against the clouds.

"What?" Clint asks the sky. "What just happened here?" The brownies are grabbing at his feet and whimpering. He resists the urge to shake them off.

***

The others arrive while Clint is still staring up at the flying dragon.

"Where is the great wyrm?" Thor asks, swinging his hammer and looking around for an enemy. 

Clint points up, wordlessly even though he knows what he sees will be only a speck to most people. Ton'i is still flying, but the snake around his neck seems to have grown arms and legs... and... unless he's mistaken... a very feminine body. What is with all this magic garbage, anyway?

Rhodey snorts a cloud of chalky dust and crouches low before his hind legs flex and his wings come down like thunder. He'll get into the air a lot slower than Ton'i did, but Clint wouldn't want to place bets against him if he was to fight Ton'i. He's a lot smaller, but far more dense, and his armament is stronger than any natural stone. Rhodey is just beginning to rise when Ton'i turns and comes back, landing on the bank with his eyes so wide a white edge shows around the gold. Rhodey settles back down and stares at the dragon. "What's that?" he asks.

"SHE BIT ME!" Ton'i says.

"Oh, stop whining," the woman wrapped around his neck says. "It was for your own good." She grabs his ears, moves her legs, flips through the air and lands on her feet in front of his chest, smirking. "Fury sent me."

Ton'i leans back away from her. "I knew it. I knew he was up to something! Never trust a magician!"

Clint is ready to put an arrow through her heart, but something in the green eyes stops him. "Who are you? _What_ are you?"

She shrugs, tossing back red hair a match for the color of the serpent that Clint had glimpsed. "Nagini." She stares at Clint, unblinking, as if that one word was the answer to both questions.

Thor's eyes are nearly as wide as Ton'i's. "Naga. I thought the serpentfolk had left the surface for palaces under the waters of the world."

Nagini shrugs again. "Even for Naga, there are debts." She glances at Ton'i. "Fury said that one is needed. I do not see why, but I owe Fury far more than I can easily repay, so I did as he bid."

"BY BITING ME?" Ton'i is indignant, but Clint is pretty sure he looks better.

"My venom can kill or cure. But no cure will last long while the poison remains to undo it." She points at Ton'i's pearl of omnipotence.

Ton'i huffs. "Yeah. Well, there's not much I can do about it. Three hundred years of really, really thinking about it didn't help. If I take the pearl out, I'm dead. If I leave it in, I'm dead slower."

"Find a new one," she replies, indifferently.

"Sure, fine. It took me a hundred years to find this one! Where am I going to get another?"

Rhodey's tail lashes. In a deep voice unlike his usual tones he says, "My thunder comes before the lightning, My lightning comes before the clouds, My rain dries all the land it touches."

Volcano.

"Um," Ton'i says. "What?"

Rhodey shakes his head. "Prophecy. I can't give you the answer. You have to figure that out on your own."

"Well, until you do, and get a permanent cure, I have to stay with you," Nagini says. "And bite you every time the venom wears off."

Ton'i winces. "Really?"

"I'm not looking forward to it, either." Nagini sighs.


	9. Chapter 9

Big green Burrruch lands with an earthshaking _WHUMPH_. His entrance is made even more impressive by the ENTIRE BARN he's carrying on his back. It's not the biggest barn Clint has ever seen and, judging from the warped, discolored wood and the rat-chewed holes in the thatching, it's been abandoned for years, but still. A BARN. He places it across the stream at its narrowest point and punches out the back of the barn. "BRIDGE," he growls in satisfaction.

Nagini backs up while staring at him. Chunks of wood fall off and splash into the stream. Burrruch notices her and scowls. Nagini backs up further. Clint doesn't think this bodes well, but he's not sure he really wants to get in between them. He hadn't woke up this morning intending to be either squashed by a grumpy giant troll or bitten by a really sexy snake. "Nice bridge," he says while casually reaching for an arrow, just in case.

Ton'i swings his head around to look at Nagini, and then back at Burrruch. He grins. "Hey, Burrruch! How's it going, big fellow?" He flaps a wing to rest over Burrruch's hairy green shoulders. "We picked up a scary snake-lady while you were out bridge-shopping. She's bitey." He tilts his head to show off the two small punctures in his neck.

Burrruch's eyes narrow and he roars at Nagini, both fists raised in threat.

Thor grabs one of Burrruch's arms, and kinda dangles there, with his feet off the ground. "The Naga is not an enemy!"

"Maybe not, but she _is_ scary," Ton'i says. "And rude, very rude." He sticks his tongue out at Nagini, who is apparently frozen in place.

"Nagini's bite cures what kills." Rhodey steps in front of Burrruch and raises his wings to hide Nagini. "A useful tool for who in darkness dwell. Within you, corrupting, like a deadly spell."

"Uh." Burruch scratches his head and shrinks down into his usual form. "OH! I get it! Poison! Her poison counteracts other poisons."

"You riddle?" Rhodey asks him with interest.

"Sure. You know, I didn't have much else to do but make up riddles. Here's my favorite! 'Man walks over, man walks under, In times of war, he burns asunder!' " Bridge. Burrruch looks hopefully around, but no one answers. He sighs. "Too easy?" He sniffs. "Is someone burning a frying pan?"

***

The frying pan is indeed ruined, but they eat fish despite that. It's a group effort; Rhodey temporarily blocks the stream by lying in it, Ton'i dangles the tip of his tail in as bait, Clint shoots the fish, Nagini guts and splits them with a wickedly sharp knife which appears out of nowhere in the tight leather garment she wears- whose origin no one wonders about either- at least not out loud, Clint does think a lot about her... anyway, the brownies sprinkle herbs and salt over the fish, and Thor strings them up inside Burrruch's 'bridge' which Ton'i turns into a smokehouse. The smoke is so hot the fish are cooked and dried before the inevitable first kettle of coffee is brewed.

Rhodey doesn't eat any of the fish, but he does tell another riddle. "Alive without breath, as cold as death, clad in mail never clinking, never thirsty, always drinking."

"FISH!" Burrruch shouts in triumph before anyone else can give the answer. "That's an old one."

"Hey, you're good at riddles," Ton'i says around a mouthful of smoked trout, "Rhodey, tell him the prophecy thingie, the one with thunder and lightning and rain."

Rhodey growls a bit. "Prophecy _thingie_? You have no dignity."

"Pfft," Ton'i says, before sticking his nose into the stream to blow bubbles.

Rhodey sighs and shakes his head. "My thunder comes before the lightning, My lightning comes before the clouds, My rain dries all the land it touches."

"Oh." Burrrruch looks sad. "Mostly I just sit under my bridge when it rains. I don't know the answer." He's munching on a watercress salad.

Ton'i hands him a bag of dried fruit. "Yeah, this weather stuff takes some getting used to. Don't worry about it. Rhodey's got an internal gyrocompass, remember? We'll just keep walking until we hit the dry rain."

"Is that like dry ice?" Burrruch asks doubtfully.

***

Ton'i is now able to fly, and he takes advantage of it by soaring ahead of the group to scout out any large, edible monsters. A bellyful of banshees (they stupidly tried to flock-attack him, but he overcame their screams by singing heavy dragon metal songs) soon makes him too sleepy to continue in the air so he returns to amble along, with the brownies and Burrruch sitting on his back. Rhodey's lodestone is guiding them into the hills.

"I know a good riddle!" Burrruch cheerfully kicks his feet against Ton'i's sides.  
"Sir, I bear a rhyme excelling  
In mystic force and magic spelling  
Celestial sprites elucidate  
All my own striving can't relate!"

Pi. 3.1415 etc.

"Easy as pie," Ton'i huffs.

"PIE," Butterfingers and his friends chorus. "WE can MAKE PIE!"

"Don't," Ton'i says, "Do not. Do you remember what happened when Dummy tried to make toast?"

Dummy hunches over apologetically. "Charcoal is useful."

Burrruch pats Dummy. "Yes, it is. Hey, Rhodey, do you have any more riddles for us? I mean, prophecy of something coming soon?"

"What lies in bed, and stands in bed? First white, then red. The plumper it gets, the better you like it," Rhodey obliges after looking around at the trees surrounding them. There are now other kinds scattered among the pines, mingling yellows, reddish browns and the occasional pale flash with the shades of green.

"I sleep on gold," Ton'i says, "and there's white gold and red gold, and I like it when it's thicker. So gold!"

"No," Rhodey replies.

"Maybe a stable?" Clint suggests, "You know horses sometimes lie down to sleep, and sometimes they sleep standing up."

Ton'i looks at Helmfall and licks his lips. "And I certainly like plump ones."

"NO!" Rhodey growls.

"Radishes!" Burrruch shouts, he's getting excited and starting to puff up. "Big fat red and white radishes!"

"Sure!" Ton'i says agreeably. "Radishes. Here, raddddissh radddiisssh, what is a radish, anyway? Is it like a rabbit?"

"THE ANSWER IS STRAWBERRY!" A strawberry pink dragon, half the size of Ton'i appears-- yes, just _appears_ in the middle of the forest path in front of them, pink mist thickening into a solid form. "How can you not know that?"

Ton'i stops dead in his tracks. "Burrruch, pinch me." With a shrug the troll obliges. "Yeah, thanks buddy." Ton'i stretches his neck out and lays his head on the ground in front of the other dragon. "Strawberry, baby, I don't know you, but I think I love you already."

"Don't call me Strawberry." The pink dragon swats him across the ear with her wing.

"Correction, I know I'm in love. I'm not trying to impress you or anything, but I could cover you in gold... but that would be a pity. Can I call you Genie? Because I bet you could make all my wishes come true."

The pink dragon rolls her eyes. "Is he always like this?"

"Sadly, yes," Rhodey says. "Never mind Ton'i, he's probably not as big an idiot as he seems. Probably." Rhodey kicks Ton'i in the side. "Get up, you're making a fool of yourself in front of the lady."

"Don' wanna." Ton'i sighs. "Did you ever see such beautiful talons? I'd love to have them walk all over me." The pink dragon swats him across the nose with her claws this time. "OW! Oh, my little Pepp'rpot." He rolls his eyes. "You do like me!"

The pink dragon flutters her wings. "I can see someone has to take charge of you, to preserve the good name of dragons everywhere." She tilts her head. "You may call me Pepp'r. I don't mind that. Now stop groveling like a worm."

"Yes, Pepp'r!" Ton'i lifts his head and grins at her. "We're off to save the world by eating monsters!" He puts his chest out. 

"What? All of them?" Pepp'r looks at the group. "With this lot? Who's in charge? Anyone?"

Clint shuffles his feet and reconsiders his first instinctive claim of leadership. Does he _want_ to try to get this group organized? Nagini is watching him with a cool non-expression as if she's reading his mind. Thor's just sitting on his horse, smiling as if being berated by pink dragons just makes his day complete.

"We have yet to find our leader," Rhodey says at last. "We will know him when we find him."

"Him? It's got to be a him?" Pepp'r sniffs, releasing a delicate stream of smoke. "All right." She looks into the forest. "Happy! Come on, we're going on a quest."

A large, shaggy brown figure ambles out of the forest and yawns, exposing long yellow teeth. The sasquatch scratches at his belly and smiles amiably. "Ok, mzpepp'r."

Clint really hopes that they don't have to sneak in anywhere.


	10. Chapter 10

After everyone is introduced (there is a moment of confusion with the brownies, because they all look alike; Ton'i suggests writing their names on them, but Pepp'r tells him that's rude) they resume their journey.

Ton'i is strutting along with his neck curled in an s-curve and his wings up like a gliding swan's. He keeps an eye on Pepp'r who is talking with her friend Happy. Clint thinks Toni looks ridiculous. You wouldn't catch _him_ puffing up to impress a female, hah. He casually moves until he's next to Nagini. He's noticed she's staying as far away from Burrruch as possible without being too obvious. He's not flexing his arms to show off bowman's muscle. He just walks that way naturally. Nagini glances at him, and then away. He's almost sure she wants to smile at him. Almost sure.

Pepp'r stops suddenly, turning so she blocks the now forest-narrowed path and forces Ton'i into a stumbling halt with the brownies tumbling off of him to yelp and complain. Her eyes are very wide and blue, Clint notices for the first time. She says, in a voice high with something that might be outrage, "Are those missing _scales_?"

"Um," Ton'i says, leaning away from her pointing claws. "Yes? I'm... it's a... I'm going to take care of it. We're working on it!"

Pepp'r is talking over Ton'i. "Are you crazy? Do you _want_ someone to poke holes in you?"

Thor has his arms crossed on his saddle and is watching the dragons argue with an air of baffled bemusement. Burrruch in his place on Ton'i's neck is, for whatever reason, giggling.

"It's my pearl, all right!" Ton'i says defensively. "It's gone bad!"

Pepp'r is hissing at him. "Pearls of omnipotence! You just had to have one, didn't you!"

"Yes, I did!" Ton'i shouts. "Ob'i ripped out..." Ton'i snaps his mouth shut. Smoke curls out of his nostrils.

Rhodey rumbles, getting everyone's attention. "If you break me, I do not stop working. If you touch me, I may be snared. If you lose me, Nothing will matter."

Your heart.

"Oh," Pepp'r says, voice gone small as she figures out the riddle. "Your heart. So..."

Ton'i sighs. "So, until I get a new one, Naggie gets to bite me."

Pepp'r's eyes narrow and she looks at Nagini. Her tail twitches. "I've seen the way you look at him."

Nagini tilts her head. "You are mistaken. I'm only doing Director Fury a favor. Ton'i doesn't even taste good."

Pepp'r lunges at Nagini who shifts into pure Naga-snake and raises her hood. Everyone is shouting and then there's a crash of thunder simultaneously with a bolt of lighting, and...

"Well," Ton'i says, looking at Thor standing tall in the stirrups, with lightning playing about his hammer, "I guess the floor is yours."

Thor shakes his head. "We should not fight amongst ourselves." He looks sad. "We should stand together, as a family."

Clint isn't really sure what a family is like, and from the dubious looks most of the others give Thor, they aren't either. But no one wants to see Thor put on his sad puppy face, so they all keep silent.

"Fine," Nagini says. "But Ton'i will not call me Naggie again. There are other places I could bite besides the throat."

Ton'i winces.

***

The path has been rising, with the pines slowly taking over once more as the ground becomes rockier. "Are we there yet?" Happy asks. He's been cheerfully bumbling along, apparently unmoved by arguments, flirting, and scientific discussions. Most of the time Clint forgets he's there, which is probably a sasquatch ability because even though Happy is quiet, he's big, and his long arms swing wide as he walks.

"No," Rhodey replies. "The pull is still distant."

Ton'i huffs grumpily and sits down. "Does that translate into somewhere on this continent?" He'd tried to fly when they were attacked by a small flock of harpies, but couldn't get off the ground, so he'd had to settle for eating the ones brought down by Clint's arrows and Thor's lightning. The ones Rhodey hit were squashed and full of rock dust, which ruined them, in his opinion.

"Could we have a few more hints, Rhodey?" Burrruch pats Ton'i on the neck. The brownies have decided that as long as Burrruch is sitting on Ton'i he counts as their responsibility so they've combed his fur all over. He's still rumpled, though.

The sphinx's tail lashes a few times. "Lonely old hunchback shivers under a white cap, Sun shines on his face when he wakes from his nap." 

An isolated mountain.

"The Sleeping Giant," Pepp'r says immediately. "There's nothing on that mountain. Why should we go there?"

Burrruch frowns. "Um..." He scratches the back of his neck. "It's 'sleeping' because it's an inactive _volcano._ "

Nagini tilts her head. "It's going to wake?"

"Splendid! I have never seen a volcano!" Thor says cheerily. He nudges Helmfall with his knees and the horse canters along the forest path.

Ton'i looks at the brownies. "I apologize. You guys aren't the stupidest ones in this expedition."

***

The Sleeping Giant is on an elevated plateau. As volcanic mountains go, it's not all that impressive, but the fact that it sits, a nearly perfect cone, in the middle of a flat, ash-covered land dotted sparsely with small weedy shrubs makes it impossible to overlook. A thin curl of smoke rises from the top, looking particularly at odds with the snow on its upper slopes.

"Ok," Ton'i says after taking a long sniff of the faintly smoky air. "He's not going to _really_ wake up anytime soon, but I'm not gonna lie and say I feel entirely comfortable poking him."

"You're fireproof, aren't you?" Clint asks.

Ton'i shrugs. "Lava's not the same thing. And..." He noses disconsolately at a large gap in his armor. "I'm not exactly at my best. So, Rhodey, which way does your lodestone point now?"

Rhodey nods at the smoking mountain. "But not...I don't think we have to go to the peak." He frowns. "It's not clear."

"Wonderful, fantastic." Ton'i rubs his chin against the pearl on his chest. "You know, how about just you and I go, Rhodey? If the Giant yawns, we can fly."

"I can fly, too!" Pepp'r says.

"Yeah, but..." Ton'i's whiskers twitch. "You're..." Nagini and Pepp'r glare at him. Ton'i finishes weakly, "um... not fire proof?"

Pepp'r fades out like pink smoke, and walks right through a tree.

"Ooh," Burrruch says, perking up and leaning over Ton'i's neck to stare at her as she comes back onto the path and resumes her solid form. "Transdimensionality?"

Ton'i huffs. "Oh, that's the easy explanation. Molecular interspersal with a phase-lock spatial memory?"

"Or, you know, hallucination?"

Ton'i blinks and nods. "Or that."

Pepp'r growls at both of them and then pokes Ton'i in the ribs with her tail. "Does that feel like an hallucination? I'm going with you. You might need someone with common sense."

"Hey!" Ton'i is offended. "I'm smart!"

"Yeah, and how many of Rhodey's riddles have you solved, hmm?" Pepp'r rises up on the tips of her claws to stare him down.

"And since you really _can't_ fly unless I bite you again, I have to accompany you as well," Nagini says.

"You could bite me now and get it over with." Ton'i doesn't look too thrilled, but he offers his neck to her.

"If I bite you too soon, my venom will not be fully neutralized by the pearl's poison." Nagini starts walking toward the mountain. "I do agree that the others should remain here."

"Well, I don't agree!" Clint starts to follow, but Thor puts one of his huge hands on Clint's shoulder.

"Perhaps the Naga is correct..."

"I don't want to stay behind!" Burrruch says, wrapping his arms around Ton'i's neck. The brownies start wailing, and even Happy begins howling. It's a confused mass of shouting and waving arms and forelimbs until they are suddenly engulfed in black smoke.

Fury walks out of the smoke. Coulson is now pale blue with green speckles. His eyes are still looking in different directions. Fury spreads his hands in a non-magical gesture and shouts, "SHUT UP! What are you, a bunch of children! I can't believe I've spent hundreds of years arranging for you all to meet! I'd do better to recruit the damn flying monkeys! They'd know how to take orders!" Clint opens his mouth to protest that no one has given them any orders, but Coulson's tongue whips out and whacks Clint in the back of the head.

Fury visibly takes a deep breath. "Thank you, Agent." He stabs a finger at Rhodey, then Ton'i, Pepp'r and Nagini. "You four. GO TO THE DAMN MOUNTAIN. The rest of you, STAY HERE. I've got my EYE on you!" Fury glares and disappears slowly, like a Cheshire cat, only the last thing remaining visible before it vanishes is his eye, not his smile. Not that he was smiling.

"Ooooh kay," Ton'i says. "Creepy visitation over, if we hurry we can get to the Giant and back before I die of caffeine withdrawal."


	11. Chapter 11

When he has to, when he really tries, Clint's vision hasn't any limit -the downside is that he can't move while he's focused that tightly. Sitting on the edge of the plain, braced by Happy's legs, he can see the four ascending the mountain. Rhodey is leading the way, with Nagini in full snake-form on his back. Clint's a bit surprised about that, he hadn't thought she would entrust her safety to someone else's legs. He can't hear them, but he can imagine what they're saying.

***

"Are we there yet?"

"No, Ton'i." Rhodey doesn't look back, but continues climbing. Ton'i is behind him, and Pepp'r is bringing up the rear.

"I'm pretty sure the mountain wasn't this tall before." No one replies to Ton'i's conversational gambit. A few minutes later he says, "I'm bored. I wish Burrruch was here. We could play a game of Prime, Not Prime." No one says anything. Ton'i waits a few seconds. "I thought you said we weren't going all the way to the peak, Rhodey."

Rhodey growls. 

"And how does that lodestone heart business work, anyway? Does it, like, tug from the inside? Or does it feel like gas? Those harpies gave me gas."

"Ton'i," Rhodey says calmly. "Can you fly right at this moment?"

Ton'i shrugs. "I don't know."

"If you don't want to be PUSHED OFF THIS FREAKING MOUNTAIN AND FIND OUT, THEN SHUT UP!"

Pepp'r pokes Ton'i in the backside. "I'll help Rhodey."

Ton'i turns his head to look at her. "And I thought you liked me." She swats him with a wing and he grins.

***

"What can't be burned in a fire, nor drowned in a river?" Rhodey stops and points with one stone wing at a flattish part of the slope. Ice. It melts instead of burning, and it floats in water. He turns just enough to frown at Ton'i. "Well? Aren't you going to guess?"

"Nope," Ton'i says, "I'm shut up, remember. And Pepp'r is _much_ better than I am at riddles."

Pepp'r hisses at Ton'i. "Just for that, I'm not going to tell you the answer!"

"It's smoke, isn't it! Or... or... rocks!" Ton'i shrugs. "Fine. I don't know what it is, but I'll find out when we get there."

They walk for a few more minutes. Rhodey coughs. "I really shouldn't let you get to the prize without giving me an answer."

Nagini is coiled around Rhodey's neck like a scaly muffler. "I'm freezing. Could we just get this over with."

"No, I need an answer." Rhodey stops. "Fearlessly I smash ships and crush roofs, yet shrink before the gentle sun."Ice. "And this time, Ton'i must answer," he says just as Pepp'r is opening her mouth to reply.

"We'll be here all day," Nagini says in a flat, bored tone.

Ton'i huffs. "Both riddles have the same answer?" When Rhodey nods, Ton'i says, "Well, leave out the poetic imagery, we're looking at something that doesn't burn, doesn't drown- doesn't sink I guess because we can't be looking for anything living here-, smashes ships, crushes roofs, and shrinks in sunli... oh... of course, ICE!" He does a little standing in place dance step and then blinks. "Ice? What's so special about ice?"

"Beats me," Rhodey says, "but that's the right answer, so we can go on."

The sun is past meridian by the time they reach the flat snow-covered patch. Nagini remains a tight spiral around Rhodey's neck while the other three sweep and scrape the snow down to an ice-filled crater. "That's it?" Pepp'r says when a patch of clouded, dark ice is revealed. She tilts her head from side to side. "Just looks like ice to me."

"Me, too." Ton'i says. He blows a little flame to melt the ice smooth, then he angles his head to look at it again. "I think... there's something in it. Something that's not ice-colored, anyway." He peers again. "Yellow? Well, if someone really took a heck of a whiz... tell me we didn't come all the way up here for a pissicle."

Rhodey grunts and starts scraping at the ice. His rocky claws leave no marks. Ton'i and Pepp'r try, but their talons are equally ineffective. Nagini eventually stretches her nose down to touch the ice. "I can taste magic. Dragonfire is probably the only thing that will work."

"I'll melt and you guys bail," Ton'i says. He rests his cheek on the ice and huffs short flames. It refreezes nearly as fast as the others can scoop the ice-melt away, but slow progress is made. The ice gradually becomes clearer until they can see what's frozen inside. "Oh," Pepp'r says in wonder as they gaze at the ice-fractured images of a great golden bird, an eagle even bigger than Rhodey, whose eyes are wide-open, crystal blue and startling against the snowy white plumage of its head and neck. "It's beautiful. But what is it?"

"A phoenix," Rhodey replies. "I've heard of them."

"Him." Ton'i arches his neck. "Not 'a' phoenix. _The_ phoenix. There is only one. H'ward told me about him. Fire doesn't bother him a bit. I always wanted to meet him. Dad said he was brave, honest, reverent, pure of heart, and in general a whole lot of what I'm not."

"So, that's our new leader?" Rhodey nods. "Ok, fire up, Ton'i, lets get out of here before the mountain trolls show up."

Ton'i gives Rhodey a dirty look. "You've jinxed us now, I hope you know that." He turns back to look again at the frozen phoenix. "I can't. Haven't enough oomph left."

"Oomph?" Pepp'r asks.

"That's a scientific term." Ton'i sighs. "Nagini, I hate to say it." He tilts his neck in her direction and closes his eyes. "Hit me."

Nagini gives Ton'i a snaky grin. "I thought you'd never ask." She raises her hood, balances, sways a moment then flashes forward to sink her fangs into his neck.

"YIIIIIKES! Ow, ow, ow, that STINGS!"

Nagini pulls back. "You are the biggest baby, Ton'i."

"Smile when you say that." Ton'i starts drawing in breath. His sides swell out further and further. "You might want to back away. Really away. Like, right now." He arches his back, opens his mouth and shoots out a jet of white flame. It doesn't stop. The ice doesn't so much melt as burst into clouds of steam. Ton'i keeps going until his sides are flat and the flame wavers and fails. He slumps onto his chest, panting.

"Did it work?" Rhodey shouts from around the bend of a boulder where he and the others had taken refuge.

Ton'i looks up at a rustling sound. The phoenix is standing over him, bending its noble head. It says, "My name is Sssteeve. You must be Ton'i. Your father froze me."

"Um." Ton'i says after a long look at the great beak and the even more impressive talons. "Sorry?"


	12. Chapter 12

Sssteeve's feathers rise in a rippling motion along his neck and over his head, settling above his eyes in a tufty frown. "H'ward is... I suppose by now, it's _was_ , a futurist. He told me I'd be needed in the future."

Ton'i blinks. "So... you're saying you _let_ him put you on ice? That's crazy. And stupid, too."

"Your father was an extremely intelligent dragon," Sssteeve says. His tone implies his doubt that Ton'i inherited that intelligence.

"Yeah, but," Tony pauses as the others three come around the boulder to stare at Sssteeve. "You _can't_ die, you'd be here anyway, without having to spend hundreds of years as a phoenice on the off chance a fire dragon would stumble over you. And really, without Rhodey to lead the way, I'd never have found you. And... I might be the last fire dragon around."

"You need to have more faith, Ton'i." Sssteeve shifts to look at the others. "I can't die, but I can be put out of commission while I heal. I could also be imprisoned. Your father said his son would need me, and that his son would be the key to saving the world. You were very important to him even before you hatched."

Ton'i rolls his eyes. "I find that even harder to believe. My dad never said he loved me. He never even said he liked me. He was utterly cold to me."

Sssteeve stares Ton'i down. "H'ward was an ice dragon."

"Point to the big bird," Ton'i admits. "Well, anyway, you're here to lead us to fame and glory, so you might as well meet some of the troops. Rhodey's the big stoneface, but he's really a pussycat. Nagini's his fashion accessory when she's not being a two-legged snake. And Pepp'r is just... well... you can see, she's perfectly Pepp'r and don't get any ideas, I saw her first."

There's a deep-toned grumbling noise, and a fissure opens in the mountain, releasing a burst of steam. "Oh, crap." Rhodey slams his forefeet down on the fissure, forcing it shut. "Nice to meet you, let's get the hell out of here, there's..."

And then half a dozen other fissures spread wide and mountain trolls are leaping out and grabbing at them.

"I hate mountain trolls, Ton'i says, trying to backwing into the air with three trolls hanging on him. He blasts blue-white flame at them, but their rocky bodies barely react. 

"They're a bit gamy." Rhodey is leaping about smashing, clawing and biting chunks out of the trolls. Around his neck Nagini is spitting poison; the trolls yell when they get it in their quartz eyes which cloud over.

Pepp'r fades to pink smoke-shape and hovers nearby, talons tucked defensively close to her belly. "I'm not a fighter. And they are so dirty!" She shudders.

Sssteeve doesn't say anything; he just swoops down, grabs trolls in his claws and drops them off the side of the mountain. It doesn't kill them, but they won't be able to climb back quickly. "Mountain trolls aren't this clever. They don't know how to sneak up on people."

"Yeah, yeah," Ton'i says, swatting a troll off by using his tail. "Maybe we just happened to be sitting on their favorite picnic spot."

"Mountain trolls don't picnic," Sssteeve replies as he knocks another troll off Ton'i with a sweep of his left wing.

"Why not?" Ton'i does a barrel roll, but the remaining troll is hanging on really tight. "Nice day, no ants, what more could you ask for?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Sssteeve scowls as he puts one foot around the neck of the stubborn troll and squeezes until the head cracks and falls off. The rest of the troll unclenches and shatters against the rocks.

"Yes! Except cabbage. There's nothing funny about cabbage." Ton'i shakes the rock dust off his foreleg. He's panting and barely keeping in the air. "Whoops!" He sideslips down and is about to land in the middle of a bunch of really sharp edged trolls when a shiny silver object flies past and pulverizes a troll before reversing course. "YO, THOR! Yay!" Ton'i lands precariously on a tilted slab of rock with all four feet gathered tightly beneath him, wings, tail and neck outspread for balance. 

There's a _THUD_ and Burrruch's big green alter-ego is snarling and punching mountain trolls. An explosive arrow appears and _kkkkrumph_ there goes another troll. Long-distance assistance is not going to be enough, however, as the mountain keeps splitting new trolls out.

"Retreat!" Sssteeve cries as he smashes several more trolls.

"Great idea! Send me a postcard!" Ton'i teeters on his perch for a moment, and then he yelps as talons grab at him, at his neck and back and tail. "HEY!" Rhodey, Sssteeve and Pepp'r (rematerialized) are clinging to him grimly and flying as hard as they can. He's bigger than all three of them combined. "Let go! You can't!"

"SHUT UP!" Rhodey digs his talons in deeper. "We're saving your sorry butt, whether you like it or not."

"Um... ok." Ton'i goes limp in their grasp. Burrruch slams one last mountain troll, then growls and leaps off the mountain. "Well, anyway, the view is great."


	13. Chapter 13

"What's wrong with you?" Sssteeve asks bluntly once Ton'i is dumped at their campsite and everyone's been hastily introduced and Ton'i is still lying on the ground, wheezing. Ton'i closes his eyes and doesn't answer.The brownies are climbing all over him, making squeaky distressed noises. "A fire dragon's one of the strongest creatures there is," Sssteeve says.

"We all have our bad days." Ton'i gets to his feet slowly. There's a tiny, crystalline 'tinkle' as something falls and hits a rock. One of the brownies picks it up. It glows blue, flickers and goes dull, dead white. Ton'i looks down at the cracked pearl in his chest. "A really bad day." His legs give out and he flops onto his side. "I hate mountain trolls."

Sssteeve nudges Ton'i with his beak. "Quit foolin' around. This is no time for vanity."

Rhodey puts on his riddling voice. "My mother soothes the pain I cause, Wraps me safe within her walls, Until the doors are broken wide, And I kiss the throat of a rich man's bride." Pearl.

"What?" Sssteeve asks, feathers forming bewildered tufts.

"The pearl. It's his heart." Pepp'r turns to Rhodey. "Well? Do we _have_ to keep guessing? Where do we find a good Pearl of Omnipotence for Ton'i?"

Rhodey growls, "My thunder comes before the lightning, My lightning comes before the clouds, My rain dries all the land it touches, Wrapping the earth in a blood red shroud."

Clint stops staring at Ton'i, seeing all his dreams of redemption dying, and looks up sharply at Rhodey. "The last line is new! It's a volcano!"

Burrruch has turned back into his smaller self and is patting Ton'i on the back. He looks at the distant mountain, which is smoking madly, and starting to spit lava down the sides. The mountain trolls are so numerous that even at this distance they can be seen as a gray mass moving along the slopes. "You couldn't have said that before?"

Thor twirls his hammer and leaps into his saddle. "Let us go do battle! It is a glorious day for bloodletting!" Helmfall looks mildly interested and paws the ground.

"Sure," Nagini says, turning back into her human shape and settling astride Rhodey's neck. "It's what, only a thousand to one odds?"

"Exactly!" Thor beams. "As I said, it will be GLORIOUS!" He laughs and throws the hammer into the air.

"No," Sssteeve says firmly, spreading his wings in front of Thor. "We need a plan."

"I have a plan. Attack." Ton'i lifts his head and starts to get up. He falls back onto his side. "On second thought, I'm open to suggestions." 

Sssteeve's blue gaze passes over all of the Avengers. "First, I need to know what everyone's skills are."

"Boring," Ton'i mutters, then lays his head down in the dirt. "Butterfingers, make us some coffee. And see if there are any of those nice cheese buns left."

***

Clint is surprised by how good it is to be fighting with a team, with people he might even start to think of as friends. If they don't get killed in the meantime, but hey, there's always that chance. He locks his legs tighter around Rhodey, pressing his back more firmly against Nagini's smooth scales. Their weight doesn't make any difference to the great sphinx. Rhodey maneuvers like a hay-cart, though, and the jerk and drop each time he takes on a troll makes it challenging to stay in place, and wait for the right moment to fire the best of his 'special' arrows. Nagini is calmly spitting in troll's faces, which gives him more time to aim at the patch of white stone in the mountainside that Rhodey has identified as their target.

"You know," Clint shouts against the grating roar of trolls, the heavy beat of Rhodey's stone wings and the burbling hiss of the slowly awakening volcano, "this is the first time I've risked my neck for free!"

Nagini spits and then says, "Well, Ton'i is rich. Maybe he'll buy you a pony."

"I've always wanted a pony." Clint gets a shot that knocks a large troll into several smaller ones. 

"Cut the chatter!" Sssteeve says, swooping in to batter a dozen trolls into a pool of lava, where they grimace and melt back into ooze. "Stick to the plan!"

Rhodey rumbles. His whole body shakes. He arches his back and then coughs up a huge round cannonball that sweeps yet more trolls into the growing lava pool. "Oh, I feel better now." He belches smaller shot, driving more trolls back.

On the plain below, Ton'i is lying on his side, faded to dark gray, with only occasional twitches of wings or ears showing that he's alive. He'd lost more of the pearl when they hauled him closer to the volcano, despite the brownies clinging to it and pressing the pieces in place. Pepp'r is crouched beside him, breathing into his mouth, while Happy stands over her, gesturing with his long arms, guiding the army of birds that have come at his call. The birds aren't very effective fighters, but their cries and darting bodies distract the few trolls who leave the security of their mountain. Thor and Helmfall smash any trolls that come close enough to the dragons to be a threat.

"Now," Sssteeve shouts the moment Rhodey clears the last of the trolls from the white stone, "Burrruch, SMASH!"

Big green Burrruch stops crushing trolls and leaps. He lands on a narrow ledge which gives way under his feet, but lasts long enough for him to bring both clenched, massive, fists down on the white stone. He's falling even as first Clint's explosive arrow and a second later Thor's hammer strike the crater he's made. Lava bursts out in a horizontal stream. "WHOA!" Rhodey veers to get out the way even as Sssteeve dives past him, splashing into the liquid fire, gouts of scarlet pouring down the slope. "I'm outta here!" Rhodey declares as the whole mountain quivers, flinging mountain trolls in all directions.

"I'm not objecting!" Clint shouts, hanging on to what he can grab, which turns out to be Rhodey's tail. 

They land near Ton'i. Burrruch is already there, still big and green and growling protectively on the other side of Ton'i. "This had better work," Nagini says. She uncoils from Rhodey's neck and resumes her human form. "I'm running low on venom."

Clint turns to Ton'i expecting him to make a smart remark, but the dragon's eyes are dull. Even with Pepp'r's help, he's barely breathing. "It'll work," Clint says, with a confidence he doesn't feel. He's seen too many dying dragons to mistake the signs. He turns back to face the volcano and the horde of really, really angry mountain trolls pouring down the sides. Normally, they don't travel far from their native rock, but he's pretty sure this bunch is willing to make an exception. He glances at the two flyers in the group. Rhodey folds his wings neatly and inspects his talons, with a definite 'staying right here' expression on his face. And Pepp'r... she doesn't even look up from Ton'i.

_Well, all right,_ Clint thinks. _We'll all go together. That's not so bad, really._ He takes up a relaxed, but ready, pose, trying to decide which of the approaching trolls is the ugliest. He wants his arrows to count.

And then Sssteeve erupts from the volcano, fire trailing from his feathers in sparkling showers. He's holding something in his beak that's glowing white, brighter than the fire, with licks of iridescence racing over its surface. The trolls all bellow at once, louder than the eruption. 

Sssteeve lands in front of Ton'i, fire still dripping from his tail, making the earth smolder under his claws. He puts the pearl down on the ground. "How do we..." He tilts his head and looks at Ton'i. "I don't know how we even take the old one out."

Clint hasn't thought of that. The pearl, even broken, is part of Ton'i. It's his heart. How can they take it out and put in another?

Ton'i's eyes open slightly wider. "Pepp'r... you're... all I have. I trust... you."

Pepp'r touches Ton'i's chest. Her eyes narrow in determination. "I can do this. I'll make it right." She puts her talons against Ton'i's chest. They fade to smoke as she reaches inside and pulls out the broken pearl, slime dripping over her claws. "Oh, that's... disgusting." She winces, but picks up the new pearl and presses it to the gaping hole.

It slides in place. Ton'i shudders all over, and then lifts his head with a jerk. "WOAH!" The new pearl gleams and he's engulfed in a blue white glow. "YESSSS!" Tony shouts. He's still glowing when he leaps into the air, glistening blue-black seamless scales covering every inch of him. His wings come down with a sound like thunder and he's up high, hovering to face the mountain. "GOOD NIGHT, ROCKY!" The pearl sends out a beam that engulfs the mountain. The trolls groan and sink back into lumps of rock, while the lava slows into pools and the smoke thins.

"WHEEEE!" Ton'i says, spinning and shooting fire in a great wheeling display against the sky. "TASTES LIKE MOCHA!"

Everyone is staring up at him as he continues to sparkle against the sky.

Clint blinks. "He's still crazy."

Sssteeve shrugs. "I could get used to him."


	14. Chapter 14

"So, the volcano's not going to erupt, Ton'i's not gonna die and we've answered all Rhodey's riddles and rescued Sssteeve, so we're fine now, right?" Clint asks in a general sort of way once Ton'i has finally landed and they're making their way back across the ashy plain towards the forest to find water and make camp. Everyone except Ton'i is hungry, tired and/or needs to repair their armor and gear. Clint used up his arrows, and even Nagini seems to have run out of daggers. It's hard to tell with Nagini.

There's a puff of black smoke.

Ton'i stops prancing around Pepp'r who is pretending to ignore him. "What? Again?" Ton'i complains as Fury steps out of the smoke. Coulson is currently pin-striped in an elegant gray and black design. Both of his eyes look at Ton'i for a second before one diverges to look at Sssteeve, then the second eye tracks over to stare at Sssteeve.

Fury crosses his arms over his chest and scowls. "Gentlemen and ladies and... assorted...whatevers." The brownies look confused as Fury's lone eye passes over them. "I have gathered you here together..."

"We're not getting married, are we?" Ton'i asks. "I mean, Pepp'r, sure, fine, and Rhodey's cool, but the group logistics... not really workable. I mean, someone's bound to step on the brownies."

Fury glares at Ton'i. "In the name of the Council of Dead Sorcerers, SHUT UP."

"Oh, I'm really scared of _Dead_ Sorcerers," Toni says with a smirk. Coulson leaps from Fury's shoulder and lands on Ton'i's nose. Ton'i looks at him cross-eyed. "Get Agent off of me before I turn him into reptile barbecue." Coulson's tongue whips out and goes into Ton'i's right ear. Ton'i yells and falls over onto his side, twitching and drooling. Everyone stares in silence.

Coulson reels his tongue back in and makes his way leisurely over to Fury where he climbs back up to sit in his usual perch on Fury's shoulder. What's possibly the most disconcerting part is that he stares at Sssteeve the whole time. "Thank you, Agent," Fury says. "Now, as I was saying, I have assembled a unique group of individuals to fight the battles we never could."

Ton'i drools.

Thor looks interested and leans forward in the saddle. "There will be war?"

"It's been building for a long time. A very. Long. Time. H'ward saw it coming, and we advised the Council to take action, but they were too busy being dead stubborn to listen, so we took matters into our own hands and set events in motion looking at the long-term."

Ton'i's ear twitches. He continues to drool.

Sssteeve clears his throat. "What did H'ward see? Why didn't you go to anyone else for help?"

"H'ward foresaw evil gathering in the dark, a rise in monsters, a vanishing of heroes. But it all happened so slow, and none of it seemed unnatural. The dragons weren't the only balance factor upset, just one of the most visible, most vital, elements. The Council refused to believe there was an guiding force behind events and forbade me to interfere. But it was a stupid-ass decision, so I did it anyway."

Ton'i's whiskers tremble. He drools. The brownies are taking advantage of his stillness to sharpen his claws.

Sssteeve looks thoughtful. "Who are the enemy? Where are they? What are their numbers and strengths?"

Fury sighs. "I don't know. H'ward looked for years, but the visions were always dark."

"So," Steve says slowly, "you gathered us together to run around stirring things up until the enemy comes out in the open?"

"I don't like that," Burrruch growls. "I've been thinking about it and I don't think I like you, either."

"It doesn't matter what you like!" Fury glares at Burrruch.

"I like Ton'i." Burrruch's eyes are very green.

Clint wanders casually, but quickly, to one side.

Burrruch bursts into his huge, green form and lunges for Fury, who vanishes along with Coulson. Sssteeve looks after Burrruch, leaping madly off in the distance, and sighs. "You know, I miss my old unit, the Howling Commandos. Sure, once a month they got all hairy and howled at the moon, but that wasn't so bad."

***

"I don't see why we have to do anything just because Fury's all upset," Pepp'r says after Ton'i recovers and they have made camp back in the forest. Ton'i has been sulking. Even fresh coffee with hazelnuts hasn't cheered him up. "I've just got Ton'i healthy enough to think about starting a family..." Ton'i snorts coffee up his nose. Pepp'r swats him with a wing. "He's not getting any younger, you know." Ton'i flattens his ears and resumes sulking. Pepp'r looks at him from the corner of her eye. "It's not as if there were lots of dragons for me to choose from." Ton'i whines and lays his head on the ground. Pepp'r swats him again and he grins.

Sssteeve uses his beak to preen his shoulder feathers into place. "I don't like Fury, either. He's too close-mouthed. I'm sure he knows more than he's telling us. But if there is a war coming, surely it would be better for us to fight together, as a team?"

"I could go back to my bridge," Burrruch says. He doesn't sound too thrilled about the idea, though.

"Bridges are among the first things to go in a war, my green friend," Thor says, looking up from where he's brushing Helmfall and checking his hooves for stones. "Will you or no, you shall be drawn into this conflict."

Clint has been smoothing ash shafts and considering whether Sssteeve would let him have a few feathers for fletching, but at Thor's words he pauses. "You talk as if you've been in a war."

"Indeed, I have." Thor puts Helmfall's foot down and pats the horse. "I was young and foolish and saw nothing beyond the glory of the battle. My failings led to exile. And worse." Happy meanders over and gives Thor a comforting hug. Considering the size and general hairiness of both of them, this is a distracting sight. The brownies stop grinding coffee beans to watch. Even Nagini pauses in honing the edge of the knife she's creating from a blob of cooled lava.

"What's worse than exile?" Clint asks once the sasquatch has released Thor.

"My brother, who is not my brother, my mother, who is not our mother, and my father, who is not my brother's father, were all at odds. I fought with my brother, and... broke... something..."

"Your family tree is very... um... complicated," Ton'i says. His head is still on the ground, but he's blowing little heart-shaped smoke rings at Pepp'r. "What did you break?"

"The Rainbow Bridge," Thor admits. "It was necessary. But until it can be repaired, I cannot go home. And I cannot repair it until I reconcile with my brother. I have searched for him for many years, without avail."

Burrruch's eyes are huge and sad. "A bridge made of rainbows?"

Clint sighs. "A brother?"

They're silent for a few seconds. Rhodey says, "I wish I had a riddle."

Burrruch smiles. "I go in dry and come out wet. The longer I'm in, the stronger I get!"  Teabag.

"Very helpful," Ton'i says.


	15. Chapter 15

"Hey, here's a thought," Ton'i says, lifting his head to look at Rhodey. "Can you reset your compass to search for Thor's brother? Forget Fury's master plan, which he's not going to tell us, _anyway_."

"Yeah," Burruch says enthusiastically, bobbing his head and grinning. "Fix the bridge! I want to see a rainbow bridge!"

"Fix things! YES!" the brownies form an impromptu ring dance on the ground between Ton'i's forefeet. "We'll help!"

Sssteeve shakes his massive wings making a rustle like crackling flames. "And that's _your_ plan, Ton'i?"

Ton'i rolls his eyes. "I don't know about you, but I can do more than one thing at a time. Fight monsters, search for long-lost brother? I say, is it too much to ask for both?"

Thor looks at Sssteeve in appeal. "I will put aside my own quest for the greater good if you declare it wise, Captain."

"Captain?" Ton'i huffs. "Who put him in charge... oh, yeah, prophecy, my dad, Fury, the Fates... whatever. Oh, Captain, my Captain..."

Sssteeve's hackles rise dramatically. "I don't know what's got your tail in a twist, but if you want me to straighten it out for you, just say so."

"Oh," Ton'i says softly as his wings spread wide, "you wanna dance, Feathers?"

Clint gets in between them. "Yo, guys? Before you start, I call dibs on all the feathers and scales that get ripped off." The brownies have been collecting Ton'i's scales and Clint's discovered that they make great arrowheads once he sharpens the leading edge. "Try not to break them." He grins as he ducks out of the way now that he's got the attention of both of them.

Sssteeve's feathers sleek down, but Ton'i is still poised to fight. Happy grunts and a barrage of pine cones, walnuts and maple keys come from the trees surrounding the clearing, thrown by squirrels. He sits down and begins cracking walnuts while he watches Sssteeve and Ton'i.

Ton'i huffs and furls his wings. "I'm not going to put on a show to entertain Fuzzy Britches."

"You know, I didn't say we _shouldn't_ go look for Thor's brother." Sssteeve preens his breast feathers until they lie smooth. Both the dragon and the phoenix look embarrassed.

"Great, we're all agreed," Pepp'r says briskly. She uses her nose to tap Rhodey on the chest. "Unless _you_ want to join in the wing-measuring contest?"

"Eh, no, thanks." Rhodey shifts from foot to foot. "You know, before we start looking, I have to tell a riddle. I can't help it, that's just the way it works." Amid general eye-rolls, Rhodey clears his throat. "You can have me but cannot hold me; Gain me and quickly lose me. If treated with care I can be great, But if betrayed I will break."  Trust.

Thor scratches at his beard. "And this is something to help guide us to my brother?"

Rhodey shrugs. "It's something to do with him, that's all I know. My lodestone is reset, now. Thor's brother is... thataway." Rhodey starts walking and the others join him while munching on various snacks.

"Have and hold... is it something about being married?" Burrruch asks. "Oh, or getting fat! You know, you can't have your cake and eat it, too."

"Or it could be an idea!" Ton'i puts in. "Although... it's hard to break an idea."

After everyone has had at least one guess, Rhodey laughs. "You are all so far from it, it isn't funny. I bet you couldn't even guess my grandpa's favorite. He told it to _everybody_."

Since there currently aren't any monsters attacking, Clint thinks they could use a distraction. Sssteeve and Ton'i still bristle a bit when they look at each other. "Well, give us a go at it."

Rhodey nods. "What goes on four legs in the morning, two at mid-day, and three in the evening?"  Humans. Babies crawl. Adults walk. Older folk use a cane.

"Is this something to do with sex?" Ton'i asks.

"No!"

"Well, it's not fire or coffee, either, so who cares?" Pepp'r swats him for that. 

"A farmer," Sssteeve suggests. "Sits on a chair for breakfast, walks around doing the chores, and then sits on a three-legged milking stool at night."

Clint shakes his head. "They milk the cows in the morning."

"Huh." Sssteeve's feathers ruffle and then settle. "Learn something new every day."

Nagini says, "It's a cat. It walks around until it gets bored, then it jumps on its hind legs trying to catch butterflies, which annoys someone who throws a rock at it and hurts its leg so it limps." She nods firmly. "A cat."

Rhodey opens his mouth. Nagini's almost smiling as she fiddles with a glowing green dagger that hadn't been there a moment ago. He clears his throat. "Yeah, it's a cat. Definitely."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter as I've run into a narrative gap & must wait for the relevant neurons to flow in to link to the ideas waiting on the other side.


	16. Chapter 16

Now that he can fly, Ton'i is beginning to resent plodding along on the ground. "This is boring. How about I fly on ahead and scout out the terrain?"

"It wouldn't be wise to split our forces," Sssteeve tells him.

"Walking is for the birds!" Ton'i looks at Sssteve, who is really not looking terribly happy about walking his eagle-shaped body through the forest, and adds, "Ostriches! Or, or, you know, those fat black and white birds that can't fly. Bit greasy, but nice."

"Penguins," Clint supplies.

"No, no, big beaks, big feet, really stupid. I kept having to move some to new breeding islands because they'd just stand there and watch animals eat their eggs."

"Oh, those were dodos." Nagini drops out of a tree to land on Ton'i's neck.

"YIPES!" He throws his neck back and she flies off, flips through the air and lands on her feet, grinning. "Wait? What? Were?"

"They're extinct."

"Awww, and I had just got my mouth set for some." Ton'i sighs. "Go away for a few hundred years and the neighborhood goes downhill."

"And they were gray, not black and white."

"Says you."

After a mile or so of listening to Ton'i and Nagini argue about the coloration of dodos, which leads to arguments about more and more ridiculous subjects until they're reduced to 'yo mama and the egg she hatched from' insults, Clint moves close to Sssteeve. Softly he says, "Ton'i is repeating himself."

Sssteeve tilts his head and listens for a few minutes. He sighs. "All right, Ton'i and I will scout ahead."

"Don't trust me on my own?" Ton'i says, wings coming up aggressively.

Sssteeve doesn't shift a feather. "We're waiting for a war to start. We all need someone at our backs at least until we know what direction it's coming from. You're tough, but you're not a thousand-eyed Argus."

"You almost sound as if you care."

Burrruch hops off of Ton'i's back. "Too much arguing. And there are NO BRIDGES!" He grows, greens and leaps off, smashing trees.

"Now look what you did," Pepp'r says. She smacks Ton'i in the back of the head. "Go after him."

Ton'i and Sssteve take off at the same instant, in a beautifully choreographed precision maneuver.

Rhodey tilts his head to watch them vanish. "More precious than gold, but it cannot be bought. It never can be sold, but is earned if it's sought. Though it be broken, it can yet be mended. Not by birth does it start, nor by death is it ended."  Friendship.

"Is that about my brother?" Thor asks.

Rhodey shrugs. "Maybe."

Clint is tired of riddles. "What's green, has wheels and grows around the house?"  Grass. I lied about the wheels.

Nagini grins. "A grass snake on a chariot."

"That doesn't grow around a house," Clint says.

She tosses her head. "So sue me, I'm a liar." She starts walking faster. "It takes one to know one."

Clint stares at her back and grins. "I'm not in love with you."

***

Clint is keeping an eye on the fliers whenever there is enough of a gap in the foliage, so he spots the motion when they both dive. "Hey! Something happened! Sssteeve and Ton'i are landing." He starts running, that's always been easiest for him in the woods, the trees seem to help him along, sometimes he swears the branches don't just move out of his way, but pull him. Thor thunders along on Helmfall and he can hear and feel the wind of Rhodey's heavy take off. He can't tell where the others are by using any of his normal senses, but he's sure they're all racing to find out what's going on.

The forest ends abruptly in a clearing filled with fresh stumps adjoining a goat pasture. What had been a goat pasture. Now it looks as if some madman was attempting to grow goats by planting pieces of them in the ground. He takes this in without paying much attention to it because people are screaming. Ton'i and Sssteve are facing each other in the center of a village square and fighting a circle of... something... somethings... big, gray and ugly. Sssteeve flashes his right wing out, the golden feathers locking like overlapped armor; Ton'i's pearl blasts white fire at Sssteeve's wing. Sssteeve flaps and the fire bounces from the wing, taking out three of the big uglies.

Thor passes Clint, yelling happily as he hammers uglies left and right. Clint slides into his stance and starts firing arrows. Dragonscale-tipped arrows go right through uglies, sometimes he can get several with one shot. He sees Pepp'r snatching children from the ground and ferrying them to the roof of the largest building in the village where a lot of people have already gathered for shelter. Happy's birds are flying in and pecking at the... what are they... giant fish, with stubby arm-fins? Giant blind fish. Ok, the monster situation is getting really wrong. People eat fish, fish don't eat people.

Rhodey and Burrruch arrive at opposite ends of the village, each of them landing on fish, which really, really makes a disgusting noise. After that, things finish up fairly quickly. Clint wanders around collecting arrows and counting the number of fish with dagger marks. Nagini is fast. The brownies show up and appropriate a number of kettles to begin making coffee.

***

"So, tell us about your not-brother, Thor," Ton'i says while picking fish bones out of his teeth. They're gathered around the courtyard of the village inn, lounging at their ease while the villagers bring them refreshments. The brownies are annoyed that other people are doing the cooking, so they're polishing Ton'i's scales and making disparaging remarks about the general upkeep of the village. Clint's a bit surprised that Ton'i didn't suggest they stay and become village brownies.

"His name is Loki." Thor drinks a flagon of ale in one go and then wipes his beard. 

Clint waits, but Thor doesn't add anything. "You know, we can't just go around shouting 'Loki, Loki, come home, Loki,' Thor. We need a little more to go on."

Pepp'r nods, just tipping her muzzle down a few inches. The village maidens have woven her a wreath of wild flowers and she's been moving cautiously to keep it from falling. "Rhodey's lodestone will guide us to him, but what will happen when we find him?"

Thor scowls. "He will probably stab me in the belly." He picks up a beer batter fried fish fillet and starts eating it.

"Is that how he always says 'hello'?" Ton'i asks. "Because, if you don't mind me pointing it out, I'd introduce him to handshaking as a greeting. It's much less messy."

"He was very angry when we parted." Thor stabs the fillet with his knife. "When I broke the Rainbow Bridge Loki fell from it."

Burrruch wipes a tear from his eye. "That's so sad."

"Yes," Thor agreed. "I stretched out my hand, but I was too late to reach him."

"I meant the bridge."

"Oh." Thor nodded. "It was a very nice bridge." Thor is on about his tenth ale. Not that Clint is counting. 

Clint leans back and looks around the village. Rhodey is in the goat pasture, eating boulders. The villagers are making a whole lot of goat jerky. Ton'i's sides are bloated with blind fish. 

"You know, isn't it weird that those fish had no eyes? I mean... that and the legs, and the climbing out of water to attack people. I thought I knew all the kinds of monsters around here."

"Well, that's because they're not from around here," Ton'i says. He burps, a very fishy-smelling burp. "They're giant cave catfish. You don't need eyes when you live in the dark."

Sssteeve has eaten his share of fish, helped the villagers tidy up, and refused ale, because it never gets him drunk, anyway. "Huh. Clint, you told me about some of the encounters you've had so far and I think I'm starting to see a pattern."

Ton'i's ears go up. "Pattern?"

"Yeah. You were trapped in a cave by the Afgharians. The sanddevils had Rhodey stuck for nearly as long. We were attacked by mountain trolls- a whole LOT of mountain trolls. It's all creatures from underground."

Ton'i huffs and rolls his eyes. "You're cherry-picking your data-points. You might as well blame forests, because that's where most of us met. Or water- the fish came from water, the Snake Princess came out of a stream, Burrruch lived under a bridge, we thawed you out."

"You just like to be contrary," Sssteeve says, not sounding bothered at all.

"Well, give me enough evidence and I might buy your idea, but at the moment it's an unsupported hypothesis." Ton'i turns to Thor. "Hey, Hammerhands, does your brother live underground?"

"Nay. He is a Frost Giant."

"Wow, you weren't kidding about your family tree, were you? Pass the ale... no, not the flagon, the keg."


	17. Chapter 17

Normally, dragons don't get drunk. Mostly this is because the supply of booze runs out, but after a few kegs, Ton'i has the bright idea to have Thor call down lightning, and Thor has enough ale to also think this is a great idea. Ton'i's pearl glows so brightly for the rest of the night that no one gets any sleep. The villagers are philosophical about this- it gives them a chance to finish making the goat jerky.

The next morning Ton'i is still too lightning buzzed to fly, so he plods along with his inner eyelids down, the deep purple translucence making his condition obvious. "I could really use some sweet bread," Ton'i grumbles. Ahead of him Rhodey stops and Ton'i bumps into him. "Ow. More monsters?" he says hopefully, before craning his neck to peer around the sphinx. "Oh, please tell me that's an hallucination."

Fury is standing in the middle of the packed dirt road, with Coulson, of course, on his shoulder. Today Coulson has achieved a shimmering dark blue sharkskin effect. "I'm the realest person you're ever gonna meet," Fury declares.

Ton'i lays his head down in the road. Burrruch is riding on Ton'i's back, so this gives him a direct line of sight for Fury. 

Clint clears his throat. "It's too nice a day to spend it chasing the big green guy, Director Fury, sir, so I'd appreciate it if you could be a little more..."

"Honest?" Ton'i suggests. "Unless that's like, breaking the magician's oath of hypocrisy."

Sssteeeve moves between Ton'i and Fury. "Director, please, just say what you've come to tell us."

"If you all would stop interrupting me, I might be able to finish!" Fury closes his eye. Coulson stares at Sssteeve. Fury takes a deep breath, opens his eye and says, "The foreseeing crystals are all dark. The Council thinks that means there is no danger. I think it means the danger _is_ the dark."

"That's it?" Clint asks for all of them when Fury doesn't say anything else. "Be afraid of the dark?"

Nagini says, "Well, that's when sneak attacks are most successful."

"You can't base a war on sneak attacks," Steve says. "Armies can't move in secret."

"This army will," Fury says. "I don't know how, but all the signs point to it. Look to the dark." And then there's another cloud of smoke, and Fury's gone.

"I hate when he does that," Ton'i says, and then he sneezes. "I think I'm allergic to magic."

"You're a dragon," Clint points out. "You _are_ magic."

Ton'i sneezes again. "You had to say that, didn't you?"

***

They have a few relatively peaceful weeks, following Rhodey's compass. 'Relatively' meaning that they are attacked by gigantic naked mole rats (Ton'i says they need mustard), dagger-fanged desert tortoises (Ton'i feels marination in wine would help), and poisonous pink fairy armadillos (a total loss, they give Ton'i terrific gas, worse than cabbage, tail-tooting for days) along with the usual hazards of wandering around the countryside with (Ton'i suspects) Fury's invisible 'Kick Me' sign on their backs.

Burrruch wads up the last of the armadillos between his huge green hands and tosses it onto the pyre Sssteeve has kindled. They're all sitting around the fire admiring the pretty colors the burning armadillos emit. Burrruch picks up a stick loaded with a loaf of bread and dangles it over the fire to toast. "I think Sssteeve is right. We've had too many encounters with burrowing monsters lately for coincidence."

"Yeah, I figured that out," Ton'i says, gloomily, sitting far away from the others, fanning his wings to try to clear the air. Even Pepp'r has refused to come near him. "But what do we do about it? Dig a big hole and hope the mastermind pops up?"

Sssteeve nods. 

"I was JOKING," Ton'i says.

"I'm not." Sssteeve spreads his wings, and then settles them again. "We take the battle to the enemy. The Great Caverns are large enough to host an army."

"But what of my brother?" Thor stands up and paces, restlessly turning his hammer in slow, humming whirls. "He is no gnome, to cower in the earth."

Rhodey says, "The lodestone is pulling me in the general direction of the Great Caverns, anyway. Maybe we'll find your brother on the way."

"No," Ton'i says abruptly. "That's a lousy plan. It stinks on ice. Count me out." He leaps into the air, blowing bits of armadillo everywhere, and knocking Burrruce's bread into the fire. "I need some air." And he's gone, flying high and fast.

"Spoilt brat," Sssteeve mutters as he uses his wings to push the bonfire back under control. All his hackles are up and his eyes have a blue fire glitter.

Clint thinks a moment. "You didn't like the ice comment."

Sssteeve twitches. "It wasn't exactly fun, being frozen for centuries."

"Ton'i was stuck in a cave for centuries."

Sssteeve's feathers sleek down tight before resuming their normal positions. "Oh, hell," he says tiredly. "I'll be back." He takes off with more caution than Ton'i. 

Clint watches the bright golden speck intersect the path of the long black cross. After a moment the two are flying side by side. Clint sighs, just a little jealous that he can't fly away from his past... but then, neither can they, really. "Anyone for kebabs?"

When they return, hours later, all that Ton'i will say is, "That was good to get off my chest...armadillo wind _lodges_." Sssteeve doesn't say anything, but his feathers flicker in a pattern Clint recognizes as amusement.

***

It's not as if they make a decision, but they keep following Rhodey, whose riddles are now all about caves and darkness. Sometimes they pass deserted villages or towns barricaded against siege. They fight so many monsters that Ton'i often hasn't room for sweetbread. Pepp'r sleeps curled against his side. The closer they get to the caves, the quieter Ton'i gets. Clint is surprised to find that he misses the never-ending stream of nonsense.

There's no wind on the day they reach the Great Caverns. They've still seen no hint of Loki, and oddly enough, for the last week there have been no monster attacks. They gather around the entrance to the cave. It's a huge thing, empty as far as they can see, sloping down to shadows that deepen to a velvet black darker than any night sky. Burrruch scratches his head, dubiously. "It's a lot darker than under my bridge."

Happy wraps his shaggy arms around himself. "It smells funny."

"Guano," Ton'i says. "Bat-shit. The place is full of bat-shit."

Thor pats Helmfall. "The stone will be hard on your feet, my friend." Helmfalls snorts and tosses his head, as if indignant at the thought that anything would bother him.

The brownies climb onto Ton'i's neck and huddle in the hollow of his shoulders where the wing muscles attach. "Nothing to fix, nothing to cook, nothing to clean," they mutter unhappily.

"We couldn't maybe go find Loki first?" Pepp'r asks.

Rhodey shakes his head. "The way leads on. I don't know that Loki is in the caves, but this is the path we must take to find him."

"It's not so bad." Nagini turns her head slowly from side to side. "A little drier than I'd like, but not too bad."

Clint isn't thrilled about the idea either. "At least with Ton'i's pearl we'll never be entirely in the dark, " he says, trying to bolster his own confidence. "As long as I have light, I can shoot anything that comes at us."

"We must do this," Sssteeve says quietly. "There is no one else. That much of what Fury said is true. If we walk away from this challenge, then who will stand in the way of the evil that lies in the dark?"

Ton'i snorts. "Ok, bitching and whining, check, bravado, check, motivational speech, check. Boys and girls, does anyone need to hit the relief stations before we get started? I gotta tell you, caves are really lacking in amenities. They don't even get one star on the hostelry ratings chart."

And then the vampires descend from the cave ceiling and attack.


	18. Chapter 18

There are a _lot_ of vampires. Everyone is fighting, with no time to strategize, but that's fine, they've had enough practice working as a unit now that they don't get in each other's way. Sssteeve and Ton'i and Thor do a three-way move with Thor supplying a lightning boost to Ton'i's pearl, and Sssteeve reflecting the blast from his wings to take down a whole phalanx of the dirty biters. Clint and Nagini sit back to back on Rhodey firing arrows, knives, and venom while the sphinx's stone wings crush vampires like swatted bugs. Burrruch just grows, grabs armfuls of bloodsuckers and squeezes. Pepp'r goes smoke-shape when attacked, then turns and uses her claws- she doesn't like biting dirty things. Ton'i doesn't mind gulping vampires down in mid-flight. After seeing how many monsters Ton'i can eat at one time, Clint has a better understanding what the eco-magicians were talking about. 

After a few noisy and strenuous minutes the only sounds are Ton'i munching deader than un-dead vampires after ripping off their wings. 

Sssteeve frowns at him. "You're making a mess."

Ton'i belches a short flame. "I'm getting full, so I'm only eating the filet." He tilts his head. "They need garlic."

The brownies emerge from their hiding place beneath Happy, who had made himself unnoticeable during the battle. "GARLIC!" says one, who might be Dummy. "It's good for your heart!" says another, who might be Butterfingers."Good for wounds!" says the third, possibly You.

"Uh huh," Ton'i says while digging a vampire fang from between two of his teeth. "Got any?"

The brownies droop. Pepp'r gives Ton'i a narrow-eyed look. Ton'i sighs. "Hey, guys, my scales are filthy. Come and make yourselves useful."

The brownies rush over, cheerful again. Ton'i lies down in the cave entrance to let them climb on his back, Burrruch shrinks down and joins them.

"We should go in now, before they can send reinforcements," Sssteeve says. "But first, gather branches for torches, in case we have to split up." He stretches his wings before folding them neatly along his back and then he leads the way into the cave. The others follow cautiously making their way down the uneven rocky floor, all except for Ton'i who pauses at the entrance, wings twitching. "Ton'i, we need you up front." Sssteeve says in a no-nonsense tone. "I don't want to waste the torches."

"Yeah, yeah." Ton'i takes a deep breath and one last look at the sky before he plunges into the cave, moving quickly to the head of the group. His pearl shines bright blue-white, evoking glossy pastel colors from stalactites and stalagmites.

"Oh, rock candy," Rhodey says, snapping off a stalactite from the ceiling to nibble on as they walk. He's right next to Ton'i. "Haven't had any in ages."

Ton'i huffs and looks away from Rhodey. "I lost my taste for it after the first hundred years."

Clint is staying within the range of Ton'i's light as they begin descending into the earth. It's generally a gradual slope, just enough of an angle that he feels slight tension in the backs of his legs. He's wondering exactly how he came to be in this position. All he wanted was a steady job, one where people didn't throw rocks and offal at him. Frankly, vampires smell worse than offal. Then he glances over at Nagini, walking soft-footed, seemingly totally at ease. Then again, he likes the company. He's working on her. The other day he was pretty sure she was considering smiling at him. He grins. Who's he kidding, this is the most fun he's ever had. 

"If we don't find water, within a day or two," Sssteeve says, "we'll have to..."

"Runs, but can't walk," Rhodey says around a mouthful of minerals, "has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed, but never sleeps." River.

"Ok," Sssteeve says, "I got that reference."

"Of course you did. That riddle's even older than you are." Ton'i scratches an arrow into the cave floor. It glows faintly blue.

***

The river Rhodey leads them to a day later is eerily still and black. Ton'i's light reveals silvery slivers of blind cave fish, few and small, nothing like the monsters that had attacked the village. Nagini scoops up a handful of water and tastes it. "There is no poison. It's safe to drink," she says.

"Great, I'll get the taste of those vampires out of my mouth." Ton'i plunges his head in and takes a large gulp of water. He opens his eyes wide, ears shooting straight up, and swallows with a visible effort. Then he lifts his head and shakes it. "You didn't say it was _ice_ water."

Nagini shrugs. "It's ice water."

"Thanks." Ton'i huffs and shivers all over. "You do know I'm a _fire_ dragon, don't you?"

Nagini rolls her eyes. "Don't be such a baby."

Sssteeve steps in between them, before the huffing and spitting starts in earnest. "Well, now that we've found the river, we may as well follow it, unless Rhodey's compass disagrees?"

Rhodey looks across the river to the unseen other side. "I am sometimes strong and sometimes weak, but I am nobody's fool. For there is no language that I cannot speak, though I never went to school." An echo.

Pepp'r looks dubiously in the same direction. "I don't know the answer, but I don't like the question."

Happy wraps his long arms around himself. "I can't swim. And I can't fly."

"You can ride one of us," Sssteeve motions with his wings at the four flyers in their group.

"I have to touch the ground, or at least something that touches the ground." Happy hugs himself harder. "Sorry. I... I'll stay here until you return."

"You can't do that," Pepp'r protests. "You'd starve."

"And we may not return this way." Thor isn't looking too pleased, either. "Helmfall cannot ride a flyer, either. You should take him and leave the cavern."

"Bridge!" Burrruch leaps up, grinning. "We could build a bridge!"

"That's ridiculous!" Ton'i shakes his head. "Out of what?"

Burrruch points at the stalactite Rhodey's gnawing on. "Them! You fly across and find the narrowest part while Rhodey and I gather them. You show us where the end will be. Clint sends an arrow with a thin line across to you so we know where to build. Thor drives the pilings in with his hammer. Nagini uses her acid to melt the main beams and the crossbars in place." He's bouncing about, grinning gleefully. "I always wanted to build a bridge!"

"I hate to say it, but I think his plan might work." Clint's not thrilled with the idea of spending however long it'll take to do this, but he does like the idea of the bridge providing a quick retreat if necessary.

Sssteeve nods slowly, after a long moment. "I think we have to do this. I don't like it, though. Bridges go both ways."

"You're thinking that we may be releasing an army?" Nagini asks softly.

"Do you trust Fury?" Sssteeve replies.

"In this much, yes. He would betray anyone for his cause. But he would not betray his cause."

"Yeah," Clint says, "but he doesn't know we're building a bridge."

Nagini shrugs. "He sent us here for a reason. We can accomplish nothing unless we go on. So... we go on."

Ton'i rises up on his hind legs and spreads his wings for balance. "Fine, fine, I was getting bored with walking anyway. Bring out the torches, I'll light 'em up, and you can play pick up sticks while I'm gone."

It only takes a few seconds for Ton'i to set three torches afire. Sssteve reserves the rest of them for later. He waves a wing at Ton'i, who nods and flies off, letting out small burst of flame every few seconds, so they can track his progress across the river.

Burrruch grows big and green and starts snapping stalagmites off at the base, while Rhodey flies up to break stalactites. It's very noisy. The brownies are holding torches, while everyone else gathers close and waits to see if anything is attracted by the noise.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit short sorry, am falling asleep & not sure I'll write tomorrow, so am posting what I have.

When Ton'i's flame stops moving, Clint aims a few feet above where Ton'i's head should be and fires an arrow fitted with a reel of night-spider silk. The silk glows softly, a dimly visible silver streak vanishing across the black water, drawn taut presumably by Ton'i. Ton'i's flame stops, Clint supposes he's conserving it. 

There are noises, soft, misleading sounds that could be voices, could be distant winds, could even be the blood pulsing in his own ears misread by a mind used to the open air and seeking something familiar. He's not accustomed to having his senses playing him false, and it sets him on edge. He's glad for more than one reason when Burruch drags a matching pair of stalactites to the water's edge and he and Thor begin noisily constructing the bridge with Nagini's assistance. Thor vows that Helmfall is both sure-footed and brave, so they opt for a rather narrow bridge, but the necessity of smoothing it level enough for even a clever horse's hooves makes it a longer process than Clint likes.

Sssteeve and Rhodey fly crossbeams into place while Pepp'r, Clint and Happy stand watch. The torches don't illuminate a large enough area to allow any of them to relax. By the time they see something it would be nearly upon them. Clint is beginning to hate caves. It's difficult to keep track of time. Torches burn low and they replace them; the brownies nervously sweep mineral crumbs and try to cook over the torches (not a happy experiment). No one stops for more than a few minutes of rest.

"How much more do we have to go?" Clint finally says. He nudges one of the brownies with the toe of his boot, unwilling to turn toward the end of the bridge even a moment. "Go ask Thor." They're down to only eight torches, and have been conserving them by using only one at a time, further reducing the lit area. Butterfingers, or You, or maybe Dummy, scuttles down the bridge which is trembling under the distant impact of Mjolnir driving in supports. 

The noise of Thor's hammer stops, but a few seconds later there's a dull thudding noise coming from Ton'i's side of the river. Clint does turn then, after checking that Pepp'r and Happy will keep watch on the riverbank. He braces himself and stares in the direction of the sound, willing his eyes to find something other than black. Everything else slowly fades into unimportance, and he makes out a gleam, a moving shape that assembles itself into the reflections of Ton'i's pearl over the edges of his black scales. It takes a few more moments before the movement coalesces and makes sense. "Ton'i's building a bridge from his side!" He can't see exactly what the dragon is doing, but the movement is definitely reflected off a surface paler than the water.

They have two unlit torches left when the bridges meet and merge. All the non-flyers have moved onto the bridge, with Happy leading Thor's horse bringing up the rear. Ton'i grins at them. His part of the bridge is made of stalagmites and stalactites, but instead of being melted into place, the crossbeams and 'planks' are set in gold and silver with assorted gemstones cemented into the mix. "I got bored," Ton'i says, rising to hover over the bridge so his light shines on it.

"So did I," Clint says, lowering his bow and relaxing slightly as he walked ahead of the others. He resists the urge to run even though he feels exposed.

Ton'i flies impossibly slowly over them. Well, impossible for most flying creatures, including Pepp'r, Sssteeve and Rhodey. Clint figures it's something to do with the pearl which is now glowing even brighter, throwing shadows in a circle around them and making the cave fish glitter like silver coins. Now that he's not bridge building, Ton'i amuses himself by snatching the largest fish as snacks. Clint wonders what it must be like to be blind, and not even know when a dragon casually picks you up until you're tossed down its throat.

He's looking down at the water, so he notices the big dull green creatures in time to wonder what they are, and then, "What the hell?" to get his bow up and an arrow fitted as the things leap out of the water with fins turned to wings and attack them from all sides. Everyone's fighting and yelling and smashing the thin-shelled things on the bridge, making it slippery with guts. 

"A flock of flying cave lobsters!" Ton'i calls out gleefully, gulping them down in mid-air. "I love swarma!"

They're big, and they're a lot of them, but really, they're not much of a threat. They have big claws that could bite off a finger, maybe a hand if you let them, but they're not all that fast, and certainly they're not smart. But he has an uneasy feeling about this. His foot slips and he skids off into the water. "DAMN IT!" The lobsters are snapping at him and he's kicking at them, more embarrassed and annoyed than concerned. Until he looks down.

There's something else in the water under them. "TENTACLES! I hate tentacles!" His bowstring is soaked and useless. He reaches the edge of the bridge. The brownies grab his arms and sleeves and pull. Thor's horse bites his shirt and drags him up onto the bridge just as the tentacles follow him. The bridge is barely above the water level and far narrower than the tentacles. Things are even more confusing and loud and full of motion in the dark lit intermittently by Ton'i's light (the torches fell in the water at the beginning of the attack.)

Thor laughs and whirls his hammer. "Great Wyrm, prepare yourself!"

"For what?" Ton'i asks just as the cavern fills with lightning that bounces off Sssteeve's wings to Ton'i's pearl and back to Thor's hammer. The light spirals brighter and brighter between the three of them until Ton'i folds his wings and drops like a stone into the river.

"TON'I!" Pepp'r calls and leans over the edge of the bridge. She rears back a second later as the water erupts into steaming bubbles.

Ton'i pops up to the surface of the water with a tentacle between his teeth. "CALAMARI and LOBSTER! You guys take me to allllll the best restaurants." He burps and paddles drunkenly in circles, picking up bright red lobsters and munching.

"HEY! Some of us need light to see!" Clint yells when Ton'i moves away from the bridge.

"MMMMmmm," Ton'i replies as he sculls back lazily looping in the water, still eating. "You should..." he hiccups..."work on that."

Nagini shouts, "You're carrying all the coffee beans! They'll be ruined."

"Huh." Ton'i lurches sideways, rights himself and rises out of the water. "Coffee?"

"After we reach shore, Great One," Thor cries. 

The brownies all nod frantically.

"Right. Coffee." Ton'i wobbles so much he nearly crashes into the bridge half a dozen times before they reach the other end of the bridge where he collapses into a twisted coil of scales for a moment before staggering to his feet. "Hey, anyone wanna see me dance? Pepp'r!" He waggles his whiskers crookedly.

Pepp'r sighs and walks up to him. "You are a ridiculous excuse for a dragon."

"But you love me anyway?" Ton'i says hopefully, before falling onto his side. "Ow. That rock wasn't there before."

Pepp'r swats Ton'i and he smiles contentedly.


	20. Chapter 20

It takes three pots of coffee and threats of neck-nipping from Nagini before Ton'i is sober enough to walk. He attempts to fly, but flips over in mid-air and crashes into the cavern wall. All three brownies squeak in alarm and rush to pour buckets of river water on him. Some of the buckets include boiled lobsters. Ton'i lets his head fall back with a clunk. "Thanks, guys."

Rhodey pokes Ton'i in the butt. "Look who fell out of the sky."

"Why are there two of you?"

Rhodey sighs and pushes Ton'i onto his feet, then presses against him when Ton'i wobbles. "No, really, that's a legitimate question." Ton'i's head droops until his nose is nearly touching the brownies. "Oh, no. There are SIX of them. If my math is right, and it always is."

"No, there aren't, Ton'i," Pepp'r says as she gets on Ton'i's other side to steady him. "Three. There are three."

"You found a mistake in my math?" Ton'i grins. "Awesome. Marry me."

"I'll take the notion under advisement." Pepp'r thumps him on the back of the head with her wings. "Move, you great lump."

Ton'i tells Clint in a confidential whisper that probably can be heard for half a mile, "She's crazy about me."

"Uh huh," Clint replies, patting Ton'i on the nose. "Crazy is the word for it."

***

The brownies ride on Ton'i's back for a few minutes, but his unsteady gait gives them Mal de Wyrm so they beg a ride on Thor's horse. While there, they braid his mane and put in tiny gold ribbons. Thor approves, so one of the brownies sits on his shoulder and does his hair the same way. Clint still hasn't figured out where the brownies get things from, or what the limitations are, but his gut feeling is that these three are fairly inept and asking them to, for example, give him a new bow is likely to wind up a disaster. 

Ton'i's light is all over the place, but it's bright and the erratic nature of it probably means that no one can sneak up on them. Probably. Rhodey stays at his side, following his internal compass and they all cluster tightly around the two of them- no one fancies being lost in the dark. It's cold and damp, and the sound of their steps (claws, talons, boots, feet, hooves- sounds that comfort without Clint having to look to see that their company is complete), their breathing, the occasional splash of a blind fish encountering the water's surface, are all magnified by the lack of any other sounds. Clint misses wind in the trees, bird song and the quiet noises of small creatures. This is like being entombed alive. Totally not Clint's idea of a fun time.

Eventually they stop to rest. Fortunately Rhodey's been leading them on a path paralleling the river (but not too close, not after the Charge of the Crustaceans) so they have plenty of water and enough supplies to last most of them for several weeks. Thor's horse has grain, and a little soggy hay. The brownies get together and somehow produce a bundle of fresh green grass, although the effort seems to exhaust them. Helmfall seems satisfied. Ton'i and Rhodey lie down, curved around the rest of the group - well, Ton'i makes up three-quarters of the circle, and they sleep for a while. Clint keeps waking up, and he'd wonder if he was the only one having nightmares, but he hears someone moving every time. Finally Sssteeve takes his head from under his wing and says, "This is no good, we may as well keep on."

No one argues. The rest has at least sobered Ton'i. He gets up, and stretches, the crackle of wing cartilage and bone and rustling scale loud in the darkness. "Huh," he says, "I just thought of something. Triboluminescence."

Burrruch sits up. His eyes glow green in the reflection of Ton'i's pearl. "But the cavern hasn't any quartz or quartzite, where will we get the piezo-electric material?" He looks at the brownies contemplatively. 

"No!" Ton'i says quickly. The brownies look very sad. Ton'i sighs. "It's much, much more important that you guys keep up the coffee making. I don't want you wasting your energy on something as simple as making new elements." He bristles his scales up until he looks more like a black pine cone than a dragon, arches his back and coughs. It's a loud, hacking noise.

Rhodey grunts. "Lobster disagree with you?"

Ton'i snaps his head down and a shower of small translucent pinkish stones fall to the ground. They shoot sparks of light when they hit each other. "The lobsters disagreed with all of us," he says.

"Rose quartz," Burrruch says with satisfaction. "I can use this." He plucks hair from Helmfall's tail. After Helmfall kicks him, he gets Thor to donate hair instead. (In her human form, Nagini has long hair, but no one even considers asking her for a donation.) He ties the rocks loosely together in groups so each of them can carry a bundle that sparks with each stride. The light isn't much until Burrruch backs each bundle with one of Sssteeve's feathers; the reflectors greatly increase the illumination. Clint is comforted to have his own light. It makes him feel a little, just a little, less dependent on a very flighty dragon who tends to get drunk during battle.

"Now that we've come this far, Rhodey, can you tell us the enemy's name?" Sssteve asks.

Rhodey thinks a moment and then nods. "Little man in velvet gown, muck raker runs all over town. Sees no evil, hears no evil; Worms his poison deep in hill."  
Mole. Moleman, actually.

"If he doesn't see or hear any evil, then how does he muck rake?" Pepp'r asks.

Rhodey shrugs. "I just tell 'em, I don't explain 'em." They start walking, and make guesses as to the answer to pass the time.

"A rich burgher," Ton'i suggests. "They like to wear velvet, and pretend they don't listen at keyholes to blackmail people."

"Good answer," Rhodey replies. Ton'i starts to preen, but is cut short when Rhodey goes on to say, "But wrong."

"A fursnake," Nagini says. "A blind, deaf, fursnake."

There is a long, moment of silence before Pepp'r says, "You just made that up right now, didn't you?"

Nagini stares expressionlessly at Pepp'r. Pepp'r stares back. Clint clears his throat. "My money's on Nagini."

Ton'i huffs. "Ridiculous. Pepp'r could take her with one wing tied behind her back."

Happy swings his head looking back and forth between Nagini and Pepp'r. "I can't decide. I'll hold the wagers."

Sssteeve flaps his wings once, to get their attention. "Velvet ants." Everyone looks at him. "Hey, they're furry and they can sting."

"They have eyes," Burrruch points out.

"Well, darn." Sssteeve flaps again and takes the lead.

Nagini looks at Pepp'r and shrugs. "I lied about the fursnake."

***

"Is it getting colder in here?" Clints asks. His arms are beginning to stiffen, and he rubs at them.

"It shouldn't," Ton'i says. "Should it, Burrruch?"

The bridge troll sniffs the air, and scratches at his hair. "No, actually, temperature and relative humidity in caves should remain constant once you're far enough away from the entrance. It should be roughly the same as the average annual temperature in the surrounding area. So it can't be getting colder."

Clint points to an icicle forming at the end of Rhodey's tail. "So that's not happening."

"Huh." Sssteve ruffles his wings, his brow feathers forming an uneasy ridge. "I don't like this."

"I'm not too keen on it either," Ton'i says, turning his head. "Fire dragon, you know? My dad would have loved this."

"So would my brother," Thor says. He's been quiet for a long time, and even now he sounds subdued.

"You said he's a frost giant. Does that mean he can make things cold?" Nagini's voice is without inflection, but Thor's shoulders still rise in a defensive hunch.

"Yes," Thor admits.

"Does he wear velvet?" Ton'i asks.

"No." Thor gives Ton'i an irritated look. "And neither is Loki blind or deaf."

"I notice you left out poisonous," an unfamiliar voice rings out. Everyone whirls to face the source, instinctively reacting each according to their natures, defensively, aggressively, curiously, or timidly, as applies.

"LOKI!" Thor grins widely and throws his arms open. "BROTHER! I have found you at last."

"To be more accurate," the very tall, slender man in armor and leather, all green and gold says, "I found _you_. Why is the Golden One so far from his kingdom and lowering himself to visit mine?"

Thor's arms slowly go down as he frowns. Everyone is watching the two of them. Loki has not approached any closer, staying just within the sphere of light cast by Ton'i's pearl. "Are you a king here, Loki? It seems not the place for you."

Loki grins. "It's a phase, a stepping stone. As I was to you." Loki ignores Thor's protest. "I was born to be a king. When you cast me down, I decided to work my way up from the bottom."

"You FELL, Loki; you spurned my hand and fell!" Thor protests.

"I wouldn't have fallen had you not destroyed the Rainbow Bridge!"

Burrruch's ears twitch at the mention of the bridge, but that's the only motion from any of them. Clint isn't sure why the others are inactive, but he's just afraid to mess things up for Thor, who obviously wants to reconcile with his brother. Clint has noticed that Loki's first remark proved he'd been listening to them at least as far back as Rhodey's last riddle. That doesn't bode well for reconciliation, but hey, what does he know? He tries to unobtrusively loosen his muscles, in case this comes down to a battle.

"Loki." Thor takes a step closer. "Come home. We will repair the bridge together. Let us not allow our grievances to drive us apart, brother."

"I am NOT your brother!" Loki shouts. "And I will not return until I RULE. You will kneel to me! All of the surface world will be MINE!"

Ton'i rolls his eyes in Nagini's direction. She shrugs.

Sssteeve steps forward. "Look, I can see you're upset, but you know, there's a lot of other folk who have claim to parts of the world, kings and queens..."

"And dragons," Ton'i puts in. Sssteve gives him a _look_. "Just sayin'," Ton'i says.

Sssteve continues, "Loki, why don't we sit down and talk like reasonable people."

"People?" Loki laughs. "How desperate are you, Thor, that you would call upon such lost creatures?"

Burrruch growls.

"And that one!" Loki points at Burrruch. "Neither fish nor fowl, nor good red meat? I would not let such a mongrel lick up the scraps from my table."

"Oh, crap," Ton'i says just before Burrruch explodes into huge green rage and leaps at Loki, who laughs at the same time all their piezoelectric lamps go dark and something covers the light in Ton'i's chest.

It's all dark and noise and confusion. "ASSEMBLE!" Sssteve calls.

"WHERE!" Ton'i yells.

"OW," Clint shouts as something very like a big hoof steps on his foot.

By the time Ton'i thinks to let out a burst of flame to illuminate the area, Loki is gone, Burrruch is gone and the rest of them are all scraped and bruised. 

"So," Nagini says, "That's your brother?"

Thor sighs and pats Helmfall. "He's adopted."


	21. Chapter 21

Rhodey shifts, with a scraping of his claws against the rocky floor. "There's something moving under the stone."

Everyone falls silent. Pepp'r goes smoke pink to drift into the ground and then emerges and solidifies. "It's dark. I couldn't see anything. But I thought I heard movement."

Clint pulls his bowstring and sets an arrow in place. Thor ties Helmfall's reins up and pats the horse on the neck. "Strike where you think best, old friend," he tells the horse, taking a braced stance a few feet away and swinging his hammer in slow arcs. Happy cracks his knuckles and moves close to Pepp'r.

Sssteeve shakes his wings out. "Ton'i, we need your fire to see, you have to stay close."

"What about Thor? He can..."

"Summon lightning as a weapon in brief flashes. We need something steadier than that. What about your pearl?"

Ton'i lowers his head and scrapes his chin against his chest. "It's still working, or I'd be the first to complain, but there's something over it. It's...it doesn't feel like anything, it's just... black."

The brownies make a three-brownie high stack and poke at the pearl. "MAGIC," the topmost brownie says, sadly. "Black magic," the middle one adds. "Stinky black magic," says the bottom-most brownie.

"Magic stinks," Ton'i agrees while lowering a wing for the brownies to climb onto his back. "Why don't you guys get up here, out of the way? I have a feeling things are going to hot up real soon."

Sssteeve nods. "Nagini, Clint, take positions on Rhodey. We'll form a circle facing outward, that way we won't risk hitting any of us."

"Except Burrruch," Ton'i says. "Do not hit the big green guy, it annoys him."

"Do you really think he's coming back?"

Ton'i huffs a small curl of flame. "Of course he will, Sssteeve."

Nagini shifts to snake form and curls around Rhodey's neck. "I wouldn't count on it. The bigger he is, the dumber he is."

"It's not the size..."

"Finish that statement carefully, Ton'i," Nagini says.

Ton'i grins around another ball of fire. "...of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."

And as if that was a signal, the cavern floor breaks apart, shattering beneath the Avengers, sending the winged ones aloft and scattering the others further apart as they scramble for unbroken footing. Ton'i sends a jet of flame down to illuminate the scene, revealing dozens of misshapen, nearly human forms, child-size, but with large, taloned limbs and long, fang-beaked faces. "KOBOLDS!" he shouts. "They're poisonous, don't let them touch you!"

This fight is even more chaotic than the previous ones. The kobolds keep smashing their way up until the cavern floor is all hillocks of slippery damp rock and unseen tunnels hidden under a few layers of stone. They're all fighting desperately, but there seems an endless supply of enemy, and the kobolds have no sense of self-preservation or tactics. They are naked and have no weapons, but they keep coming, climbing over piles of the slain. And then they start falling from the ceiling. Most of them land on rock and die immediately, but not all. One lands on Helmfall's saddle, but the horse immediately bucks it off. Nagini dodges the falling kobold and disappears down one of the holes. "NAGINI!" Clint shouts and flings himself down next to the hole, reaching down with his bow. Nagini grabs hold of the bow, but the ground is slippery and Clint's being dragged forward. "Hold on," he shouts. She looks up at him. Thor's lightning shows her face clearly for a moment. "Sorry, Clint," she says before she opens her hand and lets herself fall.

"GINI!" Clint is about to leap down after her when Ton'i crashes to the floor covering the hole, just missing squashing Clint. A kobold has landed on the dragon and bitten him in the ear, the only non-armored part of his body. Ton'i is thrashing and trying to get up, but not succeeding. Clint shoots the kobold, and climbs onto Ton'i's shoulder for a better vantage point, ignoring the tears running down his cheeks as he shoots kobold after kobold.

Pepp'r has gone to pink smoke, except for her talons, which she is using to tear a wide swath through kobolds with a fury she's not shown before. "Ton'i, you better not die! I will kick your ass so hard!"

Ton'i is whining softly and has stopped trying to move. His gasps of flame are shorter and paler. The brownies have got long knives from nowhere and are fiercely fighting any kobolds that try to get onto the dragon.

Happy's long fur, Sssteeve's metallic feathers, and Rhodey's stone hide are resistant to the kobold's poison. Thor's armor holds up as well, but a dying kobold rakes him across the throat, above the armor, and Thor is down, too. Helmfall stands over Thor, kicking and biting to defend his master.

And then there is a _THUMP_ that shakes several stalactites from the ceiling. Burrruch has returned, huge, green and with Loki tucked under one arm like a rag doll. He flings Loki down in the middle of the Avengers, picks up a stalactite and uses it in wide sweeps to pile up swathes of kobolds. Loki lies there, stunned, while battle rages on around him. 

Burrruch fights his way to Ton'i and roars in the dragon's face. Ton'i blinks. "Knew you'd be back, big guy." His eyes close again. "Jus' gonna... rest a bit." Burrruch roars again, but Ton'i doesn't move. The flames trickling from his mouth are dim. The brownies whimper.

Clint is surprised to realize that he can hear the brownies. He's been aiming at the sound of the kobold's movements since there's almost no light, but now there's also almost no sound, just the soft susurration of many creatures breathing. He stays tense, waiting, but he doesn't know what he's waiting for. There's the sound of something, no someone, moving, there are boots... approaching. The kobolds' bare feet slap against stone as they move, but it's not a rush, not an attack. More as if they are turning to meet the new one.

A faint green light draws Clint's attention. Loki is holding his hands apart, and a ball of cold, green light is glowing between them. It strengthens. Loki stands up. He looks around at the Avengers, and his gaze stops at Thor, lying on broken stone nearby. Thor is still alive, and he looks steadily back at Loki. His expression is sad. "Brother," he whispers softly, so softly, "end this madness."

Loki doesn't reply. He moves his hands further apart and the light brightens further. The Avengers who are still fit to fight stand ready to do what they can, but as the light spreads it seems even more hopeless, the kobolds are packed tightly around them, in waves going out as far as they can see. Even Burrruch stays where he is, one huge hand resting on Ton'i's neck.

The boots crunching stone finally enter the sphere of green light. A short, heavyset, very human-looking man emerges into the light. He's dressed all in green, with a long cape and is wearing something across his eyes, solid except for a single horizontal slit in the center. "Turn down that light, Loki," he says in an irritable tone of voice.

"I prefer to see my enemies, Mole Man," Loki replies without dimming the light. "They may yet have surprises for us."

Mole Man makes a grunting noise as he moves even closer, the kobolds opening and closing ranks around him. "Surprises from such as these? I told you Fury would be unable to get the council to act."

"That's true, you did."

Clint would like to kill Loki, and he could do it, but the Mole Man is surrounded by a constantly shifting crowd. He would rather take that one out first. So he waits. He can be patient. Nagini taught him something of that. In her name, he will not waste his chance when it comes.

Loki says, "You didn't tell me Thor would be among them."

Mole Man shrugs. "As you so often told me, he's nothing to you. Why does he matter?"

"True. Send him back to Asgard, that my... our... victory shall be the sweeter."

"Well, you can ship his corpse back if you like, but I don't see why you should bother. Soon there will be no one left to mourn him."

"What do you mean?" Loki's voice is soft and gentle.

In response the Mole Man laughs like a maniac. "I mean that this...." he pulls a small object, rather like a ball, but of a color so deep it was beyond black, a seeking, hungry black, "this will give me rulership over the world!"

"You promised me the surface!" Loki takes a step toward Mole Man, but stops when he comes up against a wall of kobolds. "You promised that you would make me king of all above the ground, leaving the underworld to you!"

"I promised you would be king of all who _lived_ above the ground." The Mole Man caresses the black ball before hiding it under his cloak again. "Once I've fed this little pill to the Sleeping Giant, he and all his brethren will awake and cure the world of the pestilence of light! It will be glorious, an eternal night, everywhere!"

"You're mad!" Loki says, "Nothing would survive! Even in the underworld, you must have air made by life that needs the sun!"

The Mole Man pouts. "I don't believe that." He shrugs. "And I don't care." He smiles. "I think our alliance is at an end. Take them, my friends."

Loki screams, "NO!" and fires a blast of green light at Ton'i. The pearl shines suddenly bright, and the kobolds wince back as Loki runs to Ton'i. Clint makes up his mind in an instant and clears a path with arrows.

"MOVE HIM, YOU GREAT OAF!" Loki shouts at Burrruch until the troll understands and drags Ton'i's body away from the hole. Loki leaps down.

With Ton'i's light, the Avengers are able to fight well enough to keep the kobolds at bay for a few seconds. It helps that the Mole Man is shouting contradictory orders and confusing them. Loki leaps from the hole with Nagini wrapped around him in snake form. She bites Ton'i, before squirming loose from Loki, and going to Thor to administer an anti-venom bite.

Loki stands in the middle, on top of a heap of kobolds, and sends green light blazing to fill the cavern. The kobolds flinch. The Mole Man screams in pained fury and leaps down into one of the holes. 

By the time the Avengers fight off the disorganized hordes of kobolds, the Mole Man has disappeared.

Clint speaks for all of them when they climb down to discover the hole is the center of a maze of tunnels. "Isn't _anything_ easy?"


	22. Chapter 22

"I am sometimes strong and sometimes weak, but I am nobody's fool. For there is no language that I cannot speak, though I never went to school." An echo.

"You already told us that one, Rhodey," Ton'i says. He's stretching his neck and peering down each of the tunnels in turn. "Can't see any difference... and they all smell like kobolds."

"You heard me before, and you hear me again. I slowly die, but I'll return if you call."Echo. Rhodey looks around. "Well? Do I have to give you a third hint?"

Sssteeve sighs. "We'd appreciate it if you did."

"All right, last call, after that I'm out of clues." Rhodey waits until everyone's looking at him. "I can not be seen, only heard, and I will not speak unless spoken to."  
An echo.

The group shout is loud enough to knock a few loose rocks down to clatter among them. "AN ECHO!"

"Sheesh," Ton'i says, "Why couldn't you have given us the easy one first?"

Rhodey shrugs. "Rules. You wouldn't know about that, would you?"

Ton'i sticks his tongue out at Rhodey.

Sssteeve says, "Ok, so we follow an echo? What echo?"

"Maybe only one of the tunnels _has_ an echo?" Pepp'r suggests.

"Let's split up and shout down each one," Clint says. There are thirteen Avengers if they count Loki, and omit Helmdall, who's pretty smart for a horse, but this seems a bit much to ask of him. There are far more than a dozen tunnels, but they might get lucky the first time. They each select a tunnel and put their heads in and shout.

"HALLOO...ooo...oo..." comes back.

"Who shouted that?" Sssteeve asks. It turns out they all did.

"Next time I suggest we each call our own names," Loki says dryly.

"And we should listen to you, why?" Clint says. Loki led them into a trap once, who's to say this isn't another sick game. "I don't trust you as far as I could throw you."

"Be mindful how you speak to my brother," Thor says. "He is still a prince of Asgard."

Loki rolls his eyes at Thor. "The elf has a valid point, but it really doesn't matter. What choice have you? While you weigh the possibilities of my betrayal, the Mole Man is nearing his destination. I assure you of one thing-- in his own tunnels, his speed is remarkable. Don't judge him by what you saw in the cavern."

"I trust you," Sssteeve says.

"Thank you," Loki replies, sounding surprised. "May I ask why?"

"No," Sssteeve replies. Steve figured out the answer to the first riddle in Chapter 15. His feathers ruffle and reform in stern lines. "Each of us will shout our own names into our chosen tunnel."

This time the echo returns, "DUMMY, ummy, mmmeee."

Ton'i points at talon at the nearest brownie. "Are you Dummy?"

"I'm YOU!" You points at the brownie on his right. "That's Dummy."

"Fine, Dummy's tunnel wins." 

Clint eyes the tunnel in question. It's large enough for Ton'i, unless it narrows later on, but he's not willing to think about that. The cavern was bad enough, but if they get someone _stuck_ it's going to be... very bad. "Burrruch, buddy, can you shrink down?" The bridge troll grumbles, but does as Clint asks.

Sssteeve steps into Dummy's tunnel and glances around before backing up. "Loki will go first."

"What?" Clint doesn't approve that idea at all.

"We need light or we'll lose our way or maybe fall into traps. We can't use lightning in the tunnel, and if it narrows, we can't have Ton'i blocking the way. Some of us _must_ get through to stop the Mole Man," Sssteeve says in an unyielding tone. "Ton'i must take the rear, and the rest of us roughly by size. It's the only way." Sssteeve nods at Loki who enters the tunnel, balancing a green glowing ball between his hands. "At least some of us must get through," he repeats.

***

They move as quickly as they can. The brownies ride on Helmfall's saddle. There isn't room for anyone else to ride any of the larger Avengers. Pepp'r has the easiest time of it, being able to smoke pink and slip through the stone when it narrows. Rhodey is just ahead of Sssteeve where he can eat stone if necessary to clear the way for the phoenix. Ton'i does the same for himself, but grumbles about it. "Kobold-tunnel tastes like coffee."

"I thought you liked coffee," Sssteeve remarks. Walking hunched over in a tunnel is particularly uncomfortable for the phoenix, but he hasn't complained.

"Not coffee with SALT instead of sugar," Ton'i clarifies.

They have no idea how time passes in the dark tunnel, lit not terribly brightly in front by Loki's green light and in the rear slightly better by Ton'i's blue-white pearl and his occasional huff of blue flame. They stop talking except for essentials, such as shouting down intersecting tunnels to be sure they are following the echo.

Clint hates that there's not room to carry his bow in his hand. He's running behind Nagini and glad that she's the closest to Loki. He's quite sure she won't miss any tricks on Loki's part, and won't hesitate to take him down. _Maybe_ Sssteeve believes in his change of heart, but Clint's known too many people like his 'master' who could smile while lying like champions. 

The tunnel's slope varied, but on balance Clint thought the trend was downward. He's sweating, but doesn't think anything of it until Burrruch growls behind him. "Stop! It's getting hotter."

"I thought," Clint pants, when the line comes to a staggering halt, and they can talk, "caves stayed the same temperature?"

Loki turns to answer Clint's question, "Not... when you're...running into... a volcano." Loki stumbles, and Nagini catches him under his arm.

"You're a frost giant. Can you go on?"

"I'll manage. Your concern is...touching."

"If you can't keep up, I'll kill you," Nagini says calmly. "I won't have you behind us."

Loki grins at her. "What a charming creature."

Rhodey shifts uneasily, his stone wings scraping the sides of the tunnel. "I smell fresh rock."

"Fresh?" Clint asks, looking around and trying to figure out what the sphinx means.

"Living. You call it lava. We must be close."

"From here, it might be wise to employ subtlety," Loki says. He starts moving again, but slower. Thor pushes his way forward to wrap his arm around Loki's waist.

"Brother, we are stronger together," Thor says seriously.

Loki shakes his head. But he accepts Thor's help.


	23. Chapter 23

It gets hotter. Happy is the first to falter, but Helmfall is in hardly better condition. They've both been born and bred for Northern climes, particularly the sasquatch. At the next cross-tunnel, Happy staggers inside and sits, panting. "I'm slowing you down. Go on ahead, I'll catch up later."

Pepp'r smoke pinks to his side. "You can't stay here by yourself."

"Leave me the horse. He's good company."

Thor looks solemnly back at Happy. "Helmfall is a very good horse. If we do not meet again, he will take you to Valhalla."

Happy nods, and beckons the horse to come stand beside him. The brownies cling to the horse's mane and whimper. Happy says, "I hope they have girl sasquatches in Valhalla."

No one looks back, there isn't time.

***

Clint isn't sure whether it's getting hotter still, or he's just getting tired. Loki is mainly still on his feet by virtue of Thor half-carrying him. Nagini moves as if nothing could ever bother her, and something inside him won't let Clint show weakness in front of her. Rhodey, Sssteeve, and Ton'i aren't bothered by the heat, but they are slowed down by the narrowing passageway. Burrruch and Pepp'r are the next least affected, it seems.

"How much further?" Sssteeve asks. "Rhodey, can you tell?"

"Nah. Compass just points me in the general direction. And we don't have time to figure out riddles. You guys just aren't that sharp, no offense intended."

"Pepp'r, can you take point?"

"Yes, Sssteeve." Pepp'r smokes even a paler pink than usual and runs right through the others ahead of her, diving into the tunnel where it curves to take a shortcut.

Ton'i growls. "Pepp'r better come back in one piece."

"Sometimes you lose soldiers," Sssteeve snaps back. 

"We are NOT soldiers!" Ton'i says, emphasizing his words with a blast of fire to the phoenix's tail.

Clint doesn't blame either of them for being irritated. Ton'i's had to furl his wings unnaturally tight for a long time, and crawling along hunched over must be painful for Sssteeve, a creature suited to walk only short distances without discomfort. But still... "Can you guys argue later? Like when we're not busy trying to save the world?"

"Fine," Ton'i huffs, "Just don't call me soldier, Captain Avian!"

"I wouldn't dream of it, Ton'i," Sssteeve replies. "Anyone can see you're no soldier."

"Wait. Was that an insult?"

Nagini hisses once, sharply. "This is not subtle." 

Loki says, "Petty squabbling creatures. I don't know why I wanted to rule them."

Thor shakes Loki. "I know it amuses you to foment dissent, brother, but now is not the time."

"It would be an uneven match in any case. A fire dragon against a fireproof creature?"

Ton'i growls. "Thor, if your brother doesn't shut up, I'll muzzle him."

"With what? Your tongue? That's the sharpest weapon you have, isn't it?"

"ENOUGH." Burrruch greens and grows until his shoulders span the tunnel, and he slams one fist down into the ground. "GIVE BURRRUCH HEADACHE!"

After the minor earthquake settles and Burrruch shrinks enough to continue, he says, with a grin. "Sorry about that."

Pepp'r returns soon afterward, solidifying only enough to be clearly seen. She's trembling. "The Mole Man is just ahead of us. He's trying to throw that _thing_ into a magma chamber."

"Trying?" Sssteeve asks. 

"There's something in the magma chamber that keeps catching it and throwing it back to the Mole Man through the vent hole." Pepp'r hesitates, and then continues. "I think it's getting tired, whatever it is. I can hear it breathing."

"Clint, Nagini, you two are best at stealth, go on ahead and take out Mole Man if you can do it without risking setting off that device," Sssteeve orders. "I can go through the magma, if we can make an alternate route. Rhodey, talk to the rocks, use your compass, I don't care which, find a place where we can break through without releasing the magma."

"Ah, 'break'?" Ton'i asks. "That's gonna be noisy. Mole Man might get tired of playing ping-pong and use his back-up plan. I'm betting he has one, even more suicidal than this."

"Which is why I'm asking Loki's opinion now." Sssteeve turns the full force of his sky blue eyes on Loki. "You know Mole Man."

Loki scowls. "Yes. And the fire dragon is correct. If the Mole Man can't throw his device into the magma and give himself time to get away before it triggers the magical conjunction causing all the volcanoes of the world to erupt, he'll have set it to explode with enough force to open the magma chamber and start the apocalypse that way even though his bones would be the first to melt." He sighs. "I will have to distract him." Loki holds his arms out to the sides and his form shimmers, glitters green, and begins to change.

"Shape-shifter?" Nagini says with mild interest.

"Nay, Loki but changes his appearance," Thor says.

"There is no _but_ about it," says the definitely feminine form that had been Loki. "What do you see, Thor?"

"My mother, Frigga."

"No, that's my mother," Burrruch says in wonder. "But she's dead."

Sssteeve's feathers hackle and then lie down. "I see fire."

Nagini looks uncomfortable and no one else seems interested in volunteering what they see. Clint certainly isn't. Is that elf-woman a product of his imagination, or had his mother really looked like that. Instead he asks, "So... the Mole Man will see his mother? And you think that will distract him?"

"Harvey was always a momma's boy." Loki straightens with an obvious effort. "I won't be able to withstand the heat much longer, so I can only promise you a brief distraction."

"It will do," Sssteeve says firmly.

***

Rhodey locates a cross tunnel that slants up far enough, he says, to be above the level of the magma on the other side of the wall. Ton'i uses his flame with delicate precision to melt a circle large enough for Sssteeve, and before the stone can harden, big green Burrruch punches it in to land with a loud, goopy sounding splash inside the magma chamber. The heat that blasts out of the hole drives Burrruch back, staggering. Sssteve leaps through the hole and there's another splash, apparently the chamber isn't high enough to allow him to fly. "Plug up the hole while I help Burrruch get away," Rhodey says.

There isn't anything around to plug it. Ton'i is about to say that, but Burrruch is whimpering and whining about cool shadows under bridges. "Fine. I'll play Little Dutch Dragon and the Dike." He pushes his head into the hole, moving forward until he's up to his chest and has blocked most of the hole. His pearl fills the magma chamber with light. In the center of the chamber is a sort of island made of basalt hardened from the magma. Perched on the tiny island is a pathetically thin pale blue dragon. Its eyes are the only lively thing about it, a fierce bright gold, the same as Ton'i's. Held between its teeth is Mole Man's device.

Sssteeve is paddling his way slowly through the magma, using his wings as oars. He shouts to the blue dragon, "Give it to me!"

"No!" Ton'i shouts, "you're too hot, you'll set it off!" Ton'i can see the device more clearly when the dragon turns toward him. "It's going to blow in a few seconds! Throw it to me!"

The blue dragon hesitates, and then flings the device. Ton'i grabs it and swallows it. Then he is flung backwards away from the hole as a tremendous explosion takes place inside his stomach.


	24. Chapter 24

Loki is berating the Mole Man as only a mother can, and the befuddled victim of his/her shouting doesn't notice Nagini and Clint until they lunge for him. Loki chooses that moment to collapse from the heat, and a second later there's an explosion that nearly deafens Clint. He looks to see that Nagini has turned snake and has the Mole Man wrapped up immovably tight in her coils before he asks, "Hey, does anyone know, was that the end of the world? Because if it is... Nagini, could you turn into a beautiful woman and let me kiss you?"

Nagini hisses at him. "That's an insult."

"Sorry."

"Why does it have to be the end of the world?"

"Oh." Clint grins despite still wondering if he's going to be alive five seconds from now. Nagini turns into a woman again and leaves Mole Man gasping on the ground as she and Clint kiss.

Thor bursts into the chamber and picks up his brother, returned to his usual appearance, to hug him tightly. "LOKI!"

Loki coughs. "I need to breathe, brother."

Thor laughs and sets Loki down. "Yes, brother."

Sssteeve sticks his beak through the vent hole. "Assemble at the cross-tunnel," he says sternly, "we need Loki and Thor there at once. Ton'i and H'ward are in trouble." He pulls his beak back and there are sploshing noises as he goes back the way he came.

"H'ward?" Loki asks even as Thor is half-carrying him.

"Ton'i's father. We thought him dead."

Clint is dragging the Mole Man by his cape, and not paying much attention to the half-strangled noises that follow him, being far more interested in Nagini holding his free hand. "Dragons are hard to kill," he comments.

It's hot in the cross-chamber, fiercely hot, like standing before a forge. Ton'i is sprawled on his back on the rocky floor before a freshly cut hole in the wall, his head in Burrruch's lap, with Rhodey pressing Ton'i's chest with both forepaws. A curl of black smoke escapes from Ton'i's mouth with each press. Pepp'r has her mouth to Ton'i's, sucking the smoke into herself- her pink is darkening to gray. Ton'i's pearl is still glowing, but duller than normal. Sssteeve is perched in the hole, using his wings to reflect some of the heat back in.

Sssteeve doesn't wait for anyone to ask questions. "Ton'i needs a recharge, and H'ward needs a path of magma cooled to stone so he can escape." He tilts his head back towards the magma chamber. "He's been trapped for a long time."

"My brother's lightnings are easier to call than my frost," Loki says. "But I will try."

"Wait, Loki," Thor says as he is beginning to swing Mjolnir. "If we work together, you could direct my storm to sleet instead of rain."

"Would you allow that?" Loki is startled. "Would you be such a fool as to trust me within the heart of your power?"

"Yes, brother." Thor smiles. "I have always trusted you."

Loki shakes his head. "Well then, let us be trusting fools together." He takes a deep breath. His skin turns to ice blue, all the fire in his soul condensed into blazing blood-red eyes.

Thor swings his hammer into a blazing ball of lightning. Everyone except Ton'i retreats, forced back by the wind, Pepp'r clinging to Ton'i the longest, but even her determination fails. "Be ready, Loki!" Thor brings the lightning down to strike Ton'i's pearl and without pause continues the arc of the hammer until he's aiming it at the hole leading to the magma chamber. "NOW, BROTHER, WE STRIKE AS ONE!" Loki takes hold of Thor's hand around the hammer. Blue ice pours down their combined hands, into the hammer, and shoots out as a blast of freezing rain, which pours into the magma chamber until Loki staggers and falls to his knees. Thor drops his hammer and kneels next to him. Loki reaches out, but the hammer is in the way. He pushes at it. And it shifts. He grins at Thor. "Mjolnir let me move it. Even though I'm a frost giant it thought I was worthy."

"You are worthy," Thor says simply.

Ton'i rolls onto his side, coughs, and rolls his eyes. "Wow, I've got the worst heartburn ever." He smacks his mouth open and shut a few times. "Huh. Did someone kiss me? Sssteeve?"

Pepp'r wing-swats him in the back of the head. "Don't make me sorry I kissed you!"

Ton'i grins. "I knew you couldn't resist my charms."

Everyone is watching Pepp'r and Ton'i, so the crash and accompanying blast of cold air as H'ward breaks through the magma chamber wall comes as a surprise. The Mole Man attempts to take advantage of the distraction to flee. H'ward lunges forward, grabs the Mole Man in his jaws, shakes him once, tosses him in the air, and gulps him down. Then he burps. "Would have been better with a nice Beaujolais." He grimaces, and reaches up to his mouth with one fore'hand' to extract the Mole Man's slit eyeglasses from between his teeth before grooming his whiskers smooth. "Long time, no see, Sssteeve."

The phoenix nods. "Yeah, Fury's still around. He'll want to talk to you."

"Dad?" Ton'i says uncertainly. Pepp'r comes to stand next to him.

"Hey, Ton'i. Is that your mate? She's a bit small, isn't she?"

Pepp'r uses her wing to smack H'ward a _really _good one upside the head. He sneezes. "Oh, I like her," H'ward says with a smirk, "you inherited my taste for the feisty ones, I see."__

____

***

"I don't want to live in a cave," Ton'i says petulantly.

"It's not a cave. It's a semi-enclosed mountaintop," Pepp'r says. "With nice, wide windows." Once the Mole Man was vanquished the Sleeping Giant's mountain trolls were easily persuaded that Burrruch was their king, and they'd cheerfully turned dozens of levels of twisty tunnels into apartments spacious enough even for Burrruch's big green alter-ego.

Burruch is temporarily on holiday with Loki and Thor (reunited with Helmfall), repairing the Rainbow Bridge in Asgard, and in his absence the trolls have returned to what they do best, sleeping. Happy and a host of his woodland friends are planting the mountain and the plains about it. It's worthwhile, now that the threat of eruption has been eliminated by Sssteeve and Rhodey working together to track and divert 'live rock' streams to a lake a few miles away-- they'll have an island there in a few years.

"It's a cave," Ton'i says, chin lifted stubbornly. "We could live in the forest. Or in the desert. Or maybe in a nice tropical island. Islands have fruit. You like fruit! Except for...kumquats?"

Pepp'r resumes polishing a large hollow set above one of the remaining magma chambers, one that Rhodey assured them wasn't building up pressure, and would simply keep the rock above comfortably warm. "Kumquats are fine. Ton'i. Maybe we'll visit the forests and deserts and islands later." She curls up inside the hollow. "Mmm, just the right temperature."

"Just right for what?" Ton'i nuzzles Pepp'r and for once she allows it.

Pepp'r rolls her eyes at him. "Rhodey told me I'd need this riddle."

"What?" Ton'i is distracted by the smoothness of Pepp'r's scales.

"In a marble hall white as milk, lined with skin as soft as silk, Within a fountain crystal-clear, A golden apple doth appear. No doors there are to this stronghold, yet thieves break in to steal its gold." Egg. Pepp'r growls. "But I'll kill anyone who tries to steal it.

"Steal WHAT?" Ton'i asks plaintively. 

Pepp'r sighs and whispers in his ear. His eyes go wide and a silly grin spreads across his face. "Come to think of it, a semi-enclosed mountaintop isn't at all bad. Put in a small pool, some fur throws, a few rooms full of treasure, yeah." Ton'i turns to look at the brownies. "Hear that, guys, we're staying! Go make some coffee, ok?"

The brownies cheer and run off to create havoc elsewhere. They'll eventually return with coffee. Probably.

***

"Are you spying on Ton'i and Pepp'r?" Nagini asks when she finds Clint lying on his belly looking down through one of the small fissures in the mountain that Pepp'r had insisted on for ventilation- when you have both a fire and a smoke dragon in residence, you can't have too much fresh air.

"Not really. I'm just bored." Clint rolls onto his back and smiles at her. "Don't you ever get bored?"

Nagini tilts her head in a shrug. "Not since I decided to spy for Fury." She hesitates, and then says, "I could use a partner."

Clint asks, "What's it pay?"

"All the danger and lies you can eat. And me."

"That's the best offer I've ever had."

"I know," Nagini says smugly.

***

"So, H'ward, what do you think of your boy?" Fury asks. He's sitting at the head of a large, black table in the invisible floating headquarters of the Council of Dead Sorcerers. There are a lot of chairs around the table, but all the rest are empty. Dead sorcerers tend not to need to sit very often.

H'ward drains a large goblet of whiskey. He's lying down on the floor the full length of the table. He's put on a lot of weight (and cleared two counties of monsters in the process). "He's ill-mannered, reckless, profligate, and never knows when to keep his mouth shut."

"So, a chip off the old block," Fury says. He reaches up to run a finger down Coulson's head. The chameleon rolls his eyes at Fury and turns silver-gray paisley.

H'ward laughs. "Yeah. Here's to Ton'i." H'ward raises his glass.

"And to the Avengers," Fury replies.

"May we never need them again," H'ward says softly.

Coulson lifts a thimbleful of chameleon-cognac. "Amen."

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this Avengerkink [prompt.](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11264.html?thread=26233344#t26328832)
> 
> Clint Barton is a dragon slayer. But the dragons are nearly extinct, and it's starting to become apparent that without dragons to keep them in line, other creatures are starting to run riot. Where he used to be hailed as a hero, all the blame is now being laid on Clint and his kind for destroying their only protection against mountain trolls, werewolves, and even sea monsters. Now he has to go against everything he's ever known and try to find dragons to protect them from other hunters. During his quest, he comes across a curious red dragon with a blue circle in its chest. The two work together and on their way meet other hunters willing to join them, including the shy outcast Bruce, brave knight Steve, enthusiastic prince Thor, and sly but loyal shapeshifter Natasha.


End file.
